Camping

   Four days ago I went camping with my best friend (Fintan) and my Grandfather (Jim). We went to a place called Green River Reservoir, we canoed to our campsite, set up my camps and ate. The next day Fintan and I went exploring and found that there was a little island called Picnic Isle and that we had camped right next to THE BEST CAMPING SPOT EVER! Of course it was taken. So we went kayaking/canoeing to the isle and hung out there for a while. We ate ALOT of sugar, I had 5 S'mores and 13 Oreos, we ate Ramen, Soup, pancakes and lots of other camping foods. We played games alot but when we asked Jim if he wanted to play camouflage in the woods he said....

No.

   So 2 days went by, carving sticks, making S'mores, eating Oreos, drawing, etc.. And then eventually on the 3rd day a group of kids (11-12) came by and one yelled: "Everyone who hears this give up your dreams!". Fintan promptly yelled: "My dream was to put on my sunglasses!" and put them on. I then yelled "My dream was to grab a cup with a stick!" (Earlier that day I dropped a cup in the water and got it out with a stick). The exchange went on for some time.

   On the last day we packed up and swam at the good campsite (which was empty) then we canoed back, and I almost got lost In my kayak but Jim showed me the way. We left, ate sandwiches, and went home...

  /\_/\

( 0_0 )

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(,)   (,)

   'From the point on to the bay, up the hill to greet the day,
Hosmer Point is where i want to be ...
Gather 'round our value tree, building strong comm-unity,
Hosmer Point is where i love to be ...
Hosmer Poooint, Where we are freee! Free to be who we want to baa.
Hosmer Poooint, just come and seeee! We're all a fun community,
one two three, HP! '

    That's what we sang every evening after dinner at the sleepover Hosmer Point. I left H P a week ago and now I feel like I Should write something about it. For starters Hosmer was very fun, I met a lot of really great kids, some Became good friends of mine, but sooo much Happened at Hosmer That I would be unable to write all of it in one blog post, or maybe I Could, if it was HUUUUGE  It would be About 100 paragraphs long and ...
   Oh well I guess I can not, so I'll just write the highlights. For starters the cabins were fairly small and private with only mine having seven kids. Beds were comfy, sleeping was easy, until, 7:30 When a group of kids (not Including me) went down to the water, swam, and yelled as loud as possible to wake up the camp. Yes, This was done every morning except Saturday, Where we got to sleep 'til 9:00.
   The first few days were kinda confusing, I was confused about how the day went. Then I got used to it and things started going smoothly. On Friday one of my friends ate 42 pieces of bacon and got sick. The next day I missed polar bears and got EXTREMELY ticked off. Then on Sunday I got a care package with: Beef jerky, chocolate, and raisins. Counselors took the food. I got so angry I frowned (and totally destroyed my bed later but whatever). I kinda forgot about the food, I was more fascinated With the sticky hand and the ball I got from the package. The next days were fun, meeting people, learning how to do CPR in the woods, swimming, shelter building, more CPR  One day, I was allowed to exit swimming class since i had met requirements: D. I Learned alot and burnt my hand on hot glue, then a I won at javelin throwing against 3 others who were older than me. Also I won 1st place at the tournament Jiant Jenga (Jenga The Jiant was made my my friends and I in a class)  I made a raven out of cork in Arts and Crafts and on Thursday I and four friends, Addison, Axel & Andrew & Sam ,presented a skit called:
THAT GAME SHOW!

(The next part of the post is a recollection of the story, if you find it boring carry on)

   The lights turn on, the curtains open and ...
"Welcome to: THAT GAME SHOW (that you did not pay attention to on TV)!" Said the host.
   The 3 Contestants Walked on stage, one dressed in casual clothes, the other in fancy, and the third in gray uniform pants and jacket.
"I'm your host Galel, and today's contestants are: CRIS!"
   "Criiiiiiiisss" droned The One with casual clothes.
"Jack Important!" Continued the host.
   "My name is Jack, but you can call me Jack for short," Said the fancily dressed one.
"And finally contestant 3114" The host finished.
   "How did I get here?" 3114 Looked around confused.
"For our first game we have: WHATS THIS COLOR ?!.."
A man in black Walked out and gave the host a green card.
The first contestant answered "Criiiiiisssss" and was rewarded $ 1000.
The second awnsered: "Umm thats hard one ... Ummm, unggggg ... Red?"
The same man in black Walked out and switched the green with red.
"Correct!" Said the host.
   "YES! What do I win?" Said jack.
"A sad feeling" Replied the host.
Then the third's turn arrived.
"WHATS. THIS. COLOR ?!" Asked the host energeticly.
   "How did- Wait, I was in a crate! The crate was in a boat! I, I was ki-" 3114 started
"No! Wrong! Wrong!" Said the host desperately.
The second game was The Wheel o 'Fortune. Cris got anothe $ 1000. Jack got the purple surprise,
disappointment. 3114 and got the $ 5000 tile, but then a man in the black came out and switched it to the red surprise. Then 3114 was Dragged off, then a quick succesion of a red liquid (you guessed it!) Splattered on the ground.
   The end game was: THE ANSWER IS YES!
Asked Cris was: "What is the Color of a platypus?" Which I Responded To "Bob ..." and got $ 5000.
Asked Jack was: "Will you be alive in the next ten seconds?" Jack said no, and was Dragged away to meet is doom. The winner, Cris, was Awarded first place in sailing and was Past Dragged off.

THE END!

(But that's not it!)

So, That was the skit, kinda long I know, but, you did not have to read it. Anyway, much of the fun two weeks Were I Learned a lot and Eventually, sadly, i had to leave ...Hope I can go back again.

THE END FOR REAL!


















































Why are you still going down? It's Already the end.




















































Still here ??? How? Why?

You wan't to prize?
OKAY.
Here's your prize:
 
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Raven’s

            TOP THREE

                                   Restaurants

                             (In Tegucigalpa)

  

Of the many restaurants in Tegus, I have created a list of the top three (which are chosen by my tastes, so if you don’t really like them then sorry). Let’s get into the list.

Number 1

Usami:

Near the ‘Sky Tower’ (a rich people’s apartment building) is this small sushi restaurant called Usami. It is definitely my favorite restaurant in Tegus, and best of all, they have 2x1 Monday through Thursday! I LOVE the sushi there, but I have to say that, at least for me, their soups (not counting miso) aren’t very good. They have these cool cone sushi things that are really big and they even have a family sushi-boat (thats a huge combo in a plate that looks like a boat)! The family sushi-boat is for 8 people so, just be aware. Usami has a nice little sushi bar and even a VIP room. I myself have never been inside it, but I have seen it from outside and it looks like a Japanese dining room (alongside a normal table) My favorite meal of Usami, which includes two plates, is Sake (salmon sushi) and Miso Soup!

Number 2

Sen Rose:

The follow up to Usami is ALSO an asian restaurant, but this time it’s Chinese. The reason I picked Sen Rose is because Sen Rose is IMMENSE. It is literally four stories tall and they just keep BUILDING! Also, they have a secret menu (dim sum) which has real Chinese food and not just MSG and rice… They have dumplings, rice soup, chicken and mushrooms, and more! The fact that they have REAL Chinese food makes me nominate it as at LEAST one of the best Chinese restaurants i’ve been to. My favorite meal is… Chicken dumpling bowl.

Number 3

Mami Luz y sus Calderas:

The next restaurant is a soup-erb soup place called Mami Luz y sus Calderas, which in english means Mother Light and her Cauldrons. They have ONLY soup, and their soup is GREAT. They have chicken, beef, beans, all sorts of stuff. I personally have only eaten there once, but the one food, chicken soup, was excellent. Which means I can only recommend one plate, chicken soup.

A Knight of the Seven Book Reports

I recently finished a lesser known book by George R.R. Martin called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and I have to say that it was MORE catching than A Song of Ice and Fire (commonly known as A Game of Thrones). It tells the tale of Dunk (who is an adult), a squire recently knighted, and Egg (who is 12), a runaway prince living on the outskirts of Ashford Meadow (his brother’s castle). Dunk and Egg don’t really like each other to start off with, but begin to like each other as the story progresses and they adventure the countryside of Westeros.

Other important characters are Tanselle Too—Tall, a girl with whom Dunk falls in love shortly before she leaves for Dorne. Baelor Breakspear is prince who fights for Dunk after Dunk kicks Baelor’s brother (because Baelor’s Brother kicked the townsfolk). The Red Widow is a warrior Lady-Lord who shows Dunk that he has been fighting for the wrong side and convinces him to leave. The Fiddler is a ‘Hedge Knight’ who is secretly an evil lord in search of a dragon egg, and Dunk’s knighter, sir Hector, died on a hill in a rainstorm.

The Story in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is divided in three sections:

Ashford Meadow; It is the story where Dunk is knighted and finds Egg at an inn as a stableboy. He rides to Ashford Meadow and Egg follows him until Dunk makes him his squire. Dunk meets Tanselle and then Baelor’s brother kicks some townsfolk (including Tanselle) and Dunk defends them, at which Dunk is threatened to a trial of seven where they fight along with 6 other knights until one team is defeated. Dunk wins.

The Chequy Castle; Dunk serves at an old lord’s table. He fights for this lord’s river only to realize that legally the water is actually the other castle’s at which point the Red Widow shows Dunk he has been fighting for the wrong side, but Chequy and The Red Widow’s castle are united and Dunk leaves.

Whitewalls; Dunk and Egg travel to a castle called Whitewalls where a tournament is being held at which a knight called The Fiddler (who is secretly Daeron, an evil lord) tries to win a dragon’s egg and is killed by the ‘good guys’ who are simply the other side.

The Seven Kingdoms are a setting shared by both A Song of Ice and Fire, and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. The Seven Kingdoms are set in Westeros, which would be England and Europe in our world. The places Dunk and Egg travel in are:

Ashford meadow

Flea bottom

Whitewalls

Chequy and The Webber’s Castle

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and A Song of Ice and Fire are connected deeply, from setting to characters and they even mention a few of the characters from Game of Thrones in this story, but in my opinion they are also very different. Everything from the story style to the plot is different. I could also say Knight of Seven Kingdoms is more appropriate for young adult readers, and the Knight of Seven Kingdoms book keeps moving, I really couldn’t stop reading it, unlike the Game of Thrones book I just have sitting around on my bookshelf.

I got Stranded Deep (SD) a while ago and I liked it quite a lot. I have to say I knew about Subnautica way before SD but since Subnautica was windows only on Steam (game shop) I ended up getting SD, and actually now that I have both I realize that they are REALLY similar.

The overall story is that, during a trip from LA to Japan the plane you are on (which only carried four people) explodes and goes down. You manage to escape onto a life raft, and drift to a nearby archipelago. You must survive while scavenging rusted shipwrecks and avoiding aggressive creatures like sharks. 

Many of the challenges experienced in SD are sharks (which are SUPER-aggressive from day 2 and on), drowning in shipwrecks, having low food and water, breaking bones, and even trying to flag passing vessels (which will actually never see the player due to programming). 

There are A LOT of easter eggs* in SD like a scavenge-able ALIEN UFO! You can find a ‘Wilson’ (a volleyball with a face, from the movie Castaway), a diver slate with writing on it, a ‘DeadEx’ box with the address ‘nowhere in particular’ on it, a hidden AK-47, and ocean mines, those spike balls with chains.

Most of the items you use in SD are sticks and rocks, but it IS possible to find axes, knives, hammers, and other items found in shipwrecks. BeamTeam games are considering adding alien tech into the UFO. I really want to know what they might add. I want to use a laser gun!

I really like SD, but, unfortunately not as much as Subnautica. That’s because Subnautica has tons of different creatures, plants, biomes, and it even has an element of mystery. SD, unfortunately, has a pretty straightforward storyline, no deep sea diving, and shows no sign of possible contemporary human life. I mean it’s quite hopeless to find another human, BUT the possibility of rescue is real, unlike Subnautica, where you actually colonize the planet. Also, another major difference is that SD is in 2010-2020 while Subnautica is in the 2600’s! But in the end Subnautica and SD are the same idea, a castaway story with a lonely idea. Can’t wait for multiplayer!

*a secret/hidden ‘gift’ from the creators of the game, something that is simply for a laugh, or a surprise.

I got a new video game recently and the second I opened it I fell in love with it. The game’s name is Subnautica.

The premise of Subnautica is that you (the player) have narrowly escaped a Mining Vessel (space ship) named The Aurora, which ultimately lands you on an uncharted ocean planet named 4546B. After the crash there are only about 5 survivors. By the time you realize that there were other survivors, they’re dead. When you fix your life pod’s communication system you realize the wait time for rescue is 99999 hours, or 595 days, which is 2 to 3 years! So, you’re technically abandoned with no human help, no company, and an endless source of food and water.

Subnautica takes place in an unsettled ocean planet filled with odd alien fish, snakes, slugs, you name it! There are several different biomes generated in the game, which include: Safe Shallows, Grassy Plateaus, Kelp Forest, Koosh Zone, Crash Zone, Grand Reef, Sparse Reef, Floating Islands, Dunes, Mountains, Caves, Shroom Caves, Forgotten River Zone and so many others. The time set for Subnautica is in the early 2600’s after mass human colonization spreads across several galaxies. So, much of the technology you find in Subnautica is laser, hologram, time-stopping, gravity-altering, and other odd interesting technologies.  

So far I have built a pretty large base. I have a fruit tree farm, two water purifiers, a large and small submarine, an aquarium, an office and an observatory. I have explored quite a bit and even encountered a leviathan reaper, and trust me, he is one terrifying fish! 

There is a study published in Science News Magazine that says that humanity’s appearance will become generally brown skinned, stalky and will have larger eyes. Subnautica is in alignment with that hypothesis, and in the few instances when you see your avatar, you can see that you have dark skin, short legs, and as for the eyes, I really don’t know.

The point or goal of Subnautica is to survive while fishing, farming, building, exploring, and even mining, and most of all avoiding the many, many, MANY different types  of fish that wand to eat or kill you.

Actually Subnautica shares a lot of similarities with another game called Stranded Deep, like the game plot, challenges, survival abilities and even the graphics. But Subnautica is still a Beta* game for Mac, so there are a lot more bugs and glitches there. I will write something on Stranded Deep eventually, but for now, I’m gonna go play…

The House Of The Scorpion:

Another Book Report by Raven Galel,

for a book by 

(really, remember Doctor Illuminatus?)

  I recently read a book called The House of The Scorpion, which is about a clone, named Matt, and his experience in the opium empire run by the original Matteo Alacrán. He grows up but faces countless perils due to the reaction he gets from the other humans, who think he is simply like a cow, or a dog.

The list of characters includes:

El Patrón (Matteo I)

Matteo Alacrán (The clone, Matteo II)

Rosa (A servant)

Cynthia (Matt’s caretaker)

The children: Tom, Maria, Steven

Tam Lin (A bodyguard)

Mr. Ortega (Matt’s teacher)

Matt’s friends: Chacho, Ton-Ton, Felipito.

Maria’s Mom

Senator Sanchez

And there are a lot of other secondary characters.

The Setting:

The Setting for The House of The Scorpion is quite interesting and has a large backstory. It is what was once northern Mexico and Texas, which, to stop the flow of immigration, were united into a country known as Opium. Opium controls most of the world’s drug industry and is about as powerful as the US is today.

The Story:

Matt was created from a skin cell taken from El Patrón. The fetus eventually was planted in a cow and was born. He grew up in a small house. One day a group of kids came and convinced him to come out of his hut. He broke the window (since the door was bolted) and got hurt. They brought him to ‘The big house’ and there he was helped, but when the house doctor realized he was a clone he threw him out. Then he was healed and thrown in a room with sawdust. He lived like and animal for 6 months, until one day El Patrón sent for him. Matt lived like a semi-normal kid until he was 10. He and Maria were best friends, but one day, while trying to get Maria to stay at the Big House, he fed her dog a poisoned hamburger, (which was poisoned by Tom so that Matt would die) and accidentally killed the dog. Maria left for 4 years. And when Matt was 14, El Patron ordered Matt’s heart for a transplant. Cynthia then unveiled her idea of putting light poisons in Matt’s blood, thus making Matt’s blood & heart useless for a transplant. El Patron dies and Matt escapes for Aztlán, the country where Maria lives and he is welcomed by a plankton factory where he lives in slavery for a few months before he escapes to Maria’s Mom’s home, a large hospital/church where Matt lives for a while before being given the mission to go to Opium and destroy the empire.

The House of the Scorpion is a VERY complicated and long book that plays with pretty interesting ideas. It’s so catching that I read 500 pages in only 3 days!

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone, and while I wait for the sequel, I am reading George R.R. Martin’s A Night of the Seven Kingdoms. Hmm, wonder what that book’s report is going to be like…

Afterthought:

Hey guys! I know I haven't written in a really REALLY long time, and I'm sorry, also, I really have no excuse. I will be writing a blog post on Subnautica, eventually.

- Raven