Avengers: The Movie

You all probably know about the latest Marvel movie and many of you may have already seen it, but for those of you that have yet to watch it or have reservations about it: I have one thing to say. “Watch it.”

I remember several of my friends discussing how they might end up being disappointed by the Avengers movie because of all the build up to them. I remember a few of them even saying they won’t watch the movie because of that. It might be true that if you have all these expectations built up when you see something that’s supposed to be epic it doesn’t seem that way, but I believe the Avengers meets all expectations.

It nicely puts all of the Avengers together. Ironman. The Hulk. Captain America. Thor. Hawkeye. The Black Widow. It puts them together by a single enemy showing up and stealing a valuable item from S.H.I.E.L.D. : the Tesseract, a powerful Asgardian device with infinite self-sufficient energy. Every individual member of the Avengers gets brought in to perform various tasks that suit them best. Thor is a bit of a different story because he shows up to kick the enemy’s rear end back to Asgard for trial and joins up only to get the whereabouts of the Tesseract to take it back home.

Each character having already been developed by their own movies show their true colors very well. I find that the previous development of the characters worked very well to Marvel/Disney’s advantage, because then they were able to get right to the meat of the movie’s story and develop the relationships between each of the characters and all of that without needing to develop the characters themselves.

Overall the action is great, the characters are great, the story is at the very least put together well, and the delivery is as expected: epic. 9/10

Listia

Well, here my review on Listia as promised. My curious nature brought me to this site via an ad on Facebook saying get free Magic cards, and because I have an eBay store that sells Magic cards I thought that free stuff sounds pretty good, especially if it has some value to it and I can resell it on eBay. I will say that things worked out pretty well.

Listia is an online auction site, but instead of paying with money you pay with credits and some of the things on there are pretty darn good. You can spend money to buy credits, but it’s ridiculously expensive and silly to do so unless you are absolutely certain that you’ll get your money back via product value. Alright, I wasn’t completely telling the truth when I said you don’t pay money, some auctions require you pay shipping with real dollars, but other than that there really isn’t much else you need money for in this site.

Much like eBay, every type of product you can think of goes up here. Collectibles? Yep. Computer parts? Yep. Cameras? Yep. Even books and clothing and a dozen other categories of stuff with… subcategories! Not only that, but you can get the stuff for pretty much free. Free is good, right?

If you want to add credits to your account you can do quite a few things. One is spend money to buy them there credits. Another is list your own stuff that you don’t want to have anymore and in a few days after somebody wins the auction your credits will come to you. You can also complete surveys and offers of the free kind and the paid kind and get a varying amount of credits per choice. There are also little goals here and there that can give you 10-15 credits if you complete them. Also inviting a friend that then completes an auction gives you 500 credits and them 100 plus the starting amount when they join.

I’ll tell you now that this site is in fact very legit and definitely not a scam. It’s also a fantastic way to get rid of all of your extra junk that you don’t need that somebody else might want.

Cashback

What would you do if you were able to stop time? Ben uses his time stopping for his artistic talent. Wait. That’s not the main point of this beautiful drama. Directed and written by Sean Ellis, Cashback is an excellent story about a young man who just experienced a terrible break-up and has developed insomnia because of it. In order to kill time he gets a night shift job in a grocery store and to pass the time there he develops this ability to stop time and observe the naked beauty of the women who shop there and draw every single one of them.

Ben Willis is a college art student with extraordinary talent, and with an artistic fascination with the female body. His break up hit him so hard that he could not sleep, after he gets the job at the grocery store he begins to interact with the wide spectrum of characters that he has to work with. He has a womanizing and overly competitive manager. A trickster pair of best friends that pass their time by doing some of the craziest stuff. And a few others, but most importantly, he meets Sharon Pintey the only female co-worker who he begins to develop a crush on, but cannot figure out how to let her know.

Every so often you get flashbacks to Ben’s previous crushes and the reasons as to why he has his fascination with the beauty of the female form. The story of the movie is very well put together and while it does indeed have its predictable moments these moments are forgiven by the creative license taken with the movie. The humor throughout the movie is often a little over the top, but so are most of the supporting characters.

Yes, this movie does in fact have nudity, but that is not the entirety of what the movie revolves around.

This still isn’t one of the best movies I’ve ever seen, but it is very well put together and I’ll give it a 8/10.

Cashback

Alpha and Omega

I was bored one night and decided that I wanted to watch the movie Alpha and Omega that was released in 2010 and directed by Anthony Bell and Ben Gluck. I will say that I enjoyed it, but some parts of it weren’t to my taste. In fact I kind of wonder who they were trying to target for an audience with some of the material they put in it. In their previews they presented it as a “Family” film, but as I watched it I had this feeling that something was off about that. This movie isn’t on my top anything list, but it also isn’t anywhere on the worst lists either, if anything it was in the middle of the road.

Now, just about every movie can have this said, but the plot and story of the movie was very predictable. The main point of the film was breaking tradition, as the two main characters were an Alpha, the leaders of the pack, and an Omega, the lower caste among wolves, and they spend the entire movie in love with each other which is taboo in their society. The humor was clever at some points and disappointing at others. The character development was OK, by the end of the movie I did have a sort of connection with the main characters and even some of the minor ones.

Now the major point as the why I felt off about the audience. There are several jokes in there that are tasteless and sexual in nature and executed poorly, and I’m not even sure who they were trying to get to laugh with them. I suppose teenagers in that awkward stage and a little after would find it funny. Maybe college students, I know a few guys that might find some humor in tasteless sexual jokes.

Voice acting was OK, some of the characters I liked better than others. There were definitely points within the film that could have been improved and even some that could have been removed.

Overall, I will give this movie a 6/10 as it isn’t the worst movie I’ve seen, but was nowhere near one of the best.

RockMelt: A Browser

I just made the transfer from using Google’s Chrome to RockMelt, a web browser somewhat like Chrome, but with it’s own changes. RockMelt allows you to connect your Facebook account to your browser in a simple interface where your notifications are in the upper left hand corner and you have a chat bar on the right side of the browser allowing you to chat with your Facebook friends much like Facebook. It also has an app bar on the left side where you can add some of your favorite websites to it and check out the news with those sites without actually visiting the site. You also gain the option to go into “quiet mode” where you log off of Facebook and the chat bar hides, the button for that is in the upper right corner of the browser.

The browser runs very smoothly, and aside from the additions noted this browser works very much like Chrome. Now, I like Chrome, but I find RockMelt to be even better because of the new features. I say that if you like Chrome, then you’ll like RockMelt better, if not just as much. If you try it please post your thoughts and enjoy.

EDIT: There is one bad thing that I’ve noticed… sometimes the social networking device breaks and doesn’t display you as online. I haven’t figured out why it happens and it makes it difficult for communicating with other people.

Traffic Swarm

I’ve done several searches on which sites were the best to advertise on that actively said “free advertisement here” and of all of them Traffic Swarm has been the best one I’ve tried yet. Because of Traffic Swarm, my blog’s views have increased from 15-20 views a day to 40-70 views, and it’s getting higher. I’m even getting repeat visitors, which is fantastic, but enough about me, this is a post about Traffic Swarm.

After you make a free account with them you get a few rules like: no more than 10 advertisements unless you decide to purchase our premium plan. You have to earn credits to get views to your link, and the more credits you have the more likely someone’s going to visit your site through the advertisement. How do you earn credits? The easiest way is to buy them using PayPal or a credit/debit card. The free way requires time and a little bit of work. The free way is you must surf the ads that are already present in Traffic Swarm to get 1-5 credits per view with a maximum of 250 clicks per day. At 100, 200, and 250 you get a bonus 10-1000 credits randomly decided. Also on occasion for using them a lot you get 50 credits randomly. This means that you’re guaranteed 280 credits a day, which means at least 280 views to your ad and 280 chances to have someone click on it. Easily in one day I’ve gotten 2000 credits. The most you could get for credits is 4235 which is quite a lot for a small blog.

If anything, Traffic Swarm is a fantastic start for advertising for bloggers. You may have to wait 20 seconds between clicks on ads, but you’re also increasing views on your website. You can also pick the continental area that you want to advertise to, you can pick everywhere, or just North America or Europe. You can even focus to regions.

Premium users get 5000 monthly credits, bonus credits per click, free web hosting, unlimited ads, unlimited website submits, unlimited feature articles, and even paid referrals.

Overall, if you have the time and need advertising and you have a small blog I recommend Traffic Swarm, and even if you’re trying to get just a little bit more traffic to your already busy site and have the ability to cover the expense or time requirement for Traffic Swarm then go for it.

Paul Davis’ Story

I was on my way to work when suddenly there was a roaring sound and my car flipped over. For a moment I thought I was dreaming still, but reality hit me when the car hit the ground. Pain spiked across my chest and neck as whiplash twisted my neck in ways it shouldn’t and the seat belt tightened against me. I lost my breath and began to see spots. Only one phrase went through my head: what happened? It took me several minutes to gather myself, but I noticed that my left side felt a lot hotter than my right, and I turned my head to face that side only to see the remains of a building and several flaming cars. Sirens, I could hear sirens in the distance. My seat belt pinched uncomfortably against my chest and I fumbled to free myself from its grasp. Bad choice. Pain surged anew when I landed on my back on the ceiling of my car. I spent the next several minute laying there analyzing the situation I was in.

“What on earth happened?” I said aloud, not that I expected to get an answer right away.

There was no way that the Knights could have extended their reach this far. No way. Some sirens got closer and others got farther away. Did this happen in other places? A splash of water hit me as firefighters began to do their jobs. Soon, I was extracted from the remains of my car and rolled into an ambulance.

“Sir, can you tell me your name?” A concerned female voice asked. I couldn’t see who it was because my neck wouldn’t move, because of the brace they put it in.

“Paul Davis,” my voice sounded a little hoarse.

I was then bombarded with a bunch of questions dealing with my address, phone number, and some medical questions. I answered them all by the time that I arrived in the hospital. Again the question. “What happened?” It felt like somebody else was speaking using my mouth, but I knew I was the one asking the question.

“Sir, you were in an explosion.” An explosion? That’s what happened?

My brain sluggishly put two and two together and by the time I made it to the room I was supposed to be in I figured it out. Then other questions haunted me. How many people died? Were there other explosions or was the one I was in the only one? How did they get here? Why? The explosion seemed completely random, almost as if there were no purpose. Why Meredith, New Hampshire of all the places to bomb? It’s only a tourist town.

The doctors put me through some tests and came to the conclusion that I had a minor concussion and a few dozen contusions all over my body and major whiplash. They decided to put me under watch just in case the injuries I sustained were worse than believed. From what I heard only three other people survived the same explosion and one of them wasn’t going to make it through the night. I called into work and told Vic, our other intern, to tell the Boss I was in the explosion today and would not be able to show up to work. After that, I turned on the television to the news.

“And recently today, in Meredith, Concord, Plymouth, and other towns and cities there have been dozens of bombings all over. From reports we’ve received from the police and other emergency response personnel, the explosions probably originated from the Knights of Discord. Casualties are very high and damage is reaching the millions-” I turned it off. Dozens of explosions. Deaths and damage. Right here, in my home and my state. There’s nowhere in the United States that’s safe from the Knights. When I get out of here, I’m taking Jenna and we’re leaving the country. I don’t know where, but I want to live someplace safe with my wife and child.

“Mr. Davis?” A nurse peeked into my room from the entrance.

“Yes?”

She timidly entered the room. “Sir, we tried calling the number you gave us, but the line was dead. Um, and we checked the address, and that’s one of, um, the locations that were bombed. When the ambulances arrived, um, they found your wife, but she, uh, she was dead.”

Anything else she had to say was lost to me. After those last three words came out of her mouth, my pain and emotions exploded and everything around me became insignificant. The pain was so powerful, I could only stare with ungodly disbelief at the ceiling as if that could reverse time and undo everything that just happened. There was nothing more I wanted to do than go back in time and back to home and save her.

30 Sleep Challenge

Remember that 30 sleep challenge hosted by GOOD that I posted about a few weeks back? They said that they’d send emails with tips on how to go about this challenge, and I have yet to receive an email. I must say that this is quite disappointing, because sleep is very hard for me to come across, and if there’s no guidelines for this challenge how am I to improve my sleep schedule? I read the comments on the challenge post and one of them said that they used to send the daily email for challenges, but they’ve changed their system. This new one doesn’t work.

GOOD is a great website, but I can’t help but feel a bit cheated here. I know I didn’t pay anything, but I went into this challenge expecting goals to be presented as come with many of the other challenges that are out there. I don’t know enough about sleep to improve my schedule, and I’m an insomniac therefor it is more difficult for me to sleep. I would have been nice to receive at least a single email with a list of what to do with some tips for the entirety of the challenge. I’m sorry GOOD, but I am disappoint.

MySurvey.com

I figured it is about time I do a formal review on this paid survey site. I’ve now spent about a month working with it and finally have come up with an assessment of this site. MySurvey is a decent paid survey that you can earn some money with if you take the time to use it and don’t speed through each survey, although you get chances at a larger reward if you do speed through, I’ll explain in full detail later in this post.

Signing up is very easy, you give them your email, make a password, and then attach a PayPal account to it. There’s also a little bit more information, but not much. They try to find surveys that fit your profile after you do a survey to give them the information required to find surveys for you. Many of the surveys they give to you afterwards are opinion based anyways.

The interface for answering surveys fits a few similar styles, some of them appear more modern than others. The style of the survey depends on who has posted it. After meeting an estimated time while taking the survey you will get “paid” in reward points upon completion. You always will get entered into a monthly raffle for every survey you complete. This monthly raffle gives you a chance to get 10000 reward points (10 people win this each month), or 50000 reward points (only one person wins this each month). There is also a $4000 sweepstakes that happens every 3 months, this has special rules that can be found at this link.

Every 1000 points is worth $10 and they do add up provided you take the estimated time to answer the survey and don’t speed through, otherwise you only get the chance to win the 10000 points every month. Here are the rules for the monthly sweepstakes. Reward points also can be turned in for various non-cash rewards from gift cards/certificates to bags and wallets to other various products. However, be careful with the non-cash rewards because I read some reviews saying that the wrong stuff was sent to them and the company that owns MySurvey would not give a refund. Anyone with an account with less than 1000 reward points is considered having an account with no value.

Overall this is a decent site to make some pocket change and possibly win some product of some sort. Even get gift certificates/cards. I recommend MySurvey if only because you can make some money from it or get a small gift card to a family member who goes to wherever the card is for.  I give MySurvey a 4/10 on profitability, but a 10/10 for pocket change and 10/10 for free gifts for family. They are also absolutely legitimate and less of a pain than any of the other survey sites I’ve tried.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Kingdoms of Amalur is a fantasy role playing game published by EA and developed by 38 Studios and Big Huge Games. Perhaps one of the best games released by EA this year. The people involved with its development are well-known for their works of story-writing and game development, names such as R. A. Salvatore, and Ken Rolston. This is one of the best games I’ve played this year, but it still has its problems too.

First, I’ll give you the good news. The story of this game is well written. Your character can be built from 4 playable races, 3 class trees that you can pick and choose from, and various “destinies” that you can unlock as you progress. At the start you are introduced to a world at war and the contenders are mortals on one side and the winter fae on the other. Your character starts out dead, and you are revived via a thing called “The Well of Souls”. However, because you have been brought back to life, you have broken free of your fate and now can manifest and change fate through your actions.

The game gives the player an excellent tutorial starting with movement and picking things up. Then it moves into the various parts of combat: melee, ranged, sneak attacks, and magic. The tutorial ends with you learning one last mechanic on a boss type creature, finishers. You get easily readable messages on the screen telling you which button does what, and that makes it very easy to quickly learn the game’s controls.

The game’s visually very appealing. Characters look good. The environment looks good. Your armor changes as you get new stuff, but certain combinations while they may be the best you have doesn’t always look good together. I have a Wizard that has a light grey-blue robe with green gloves, golden boots, and dark grey pants, but they’re the best pieces of equipment he has, but hey at least his staff looks cool. You also can have the option to hide your character’s helm or head-piece because not everyone likes how they look.

The voice acting for NPCs (non-player characters) is done very well. Voices for each character fits very well, and you can even pick up some feeling in the voice. Sadly, your character remains silent throughout the entirety of the game. Which brings me to the first bad point of the game. After playing several role playing games where your character responds through talking it felt somewhat foreign and intrusive having a character that has conversation choices in-game without actually speaking.

Combat is the majority of the game, so in that case it’s not much different from Dungeon Siege. However, the combat system is very smooth with no noticeable bugs, and enemies have resistances and weaknesses that make sense. There is a dark side to this too, except for bosses and sometimes not even then, combat is easy even if you’re playing the game on “Hard”. My wizard can one or two-shot most everything at his level and getting hit is no problem. I tried a rogue and fighter style of characters and even then combat was a cake walk.

Overall, I do recommend trying this game because it is fun and the story is interesting to follow. I also give it a 7.5/10.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning