The West

Alright, this week is a landscape shot. It's one of the packaged wallpapers that came with the Windows 7 RC. To me, this encompasses everything the west is, or what it should be. Beautiful, open, and humbling to look upon. Hope you enjoy this one as much as I am.

De-Stress-Ify

Totally just made up a new word you guise. Destressify. If you've had your basic English course, then you can probably put it all together and get the meaning. For those that haven't had this course, it basically means to get rid of stress.

Stress encompasses us as we go through our daily lives. It's human nature to have at the back of our mind, small and menial things, that eventually work their way forward to the front of our brain. The part of the brain which that is used for logical reasoning, and the mainframe of almost all decision making. Once these thoughts get to this point, they begin to clutter up our decision making, and our entire logical thought process. This is what we commonly know as stress, and it can truly make life miserable. Headaches, tight muscles, and weariness are some examples of the physical effects of stress. Stress can also have a large effect on our emotions, because we simply can't think straight.

So, how do we rid ourselves of this atrocity? Simple really, relax. Take a break, let your mind sort through all of the mumble jumble, and quit adding more debris to the pile of disorder. Give your brain a chance to clean house.

Now there are many ways of doing this, and I'm sure you already have a couple ways that you like to relax. I'm here to share with you mine though, because it's the greatest part of my week and I can't go on without sharing my secret with someone!

My secret destressifying relaxation technique is a three step process:

1.) 20 Minutes of Exercise
2.) 20 Minutes of Meditation
3.) 20 Minutes of Spiritual/Scripture Study

Three 20 minute segments, each concentrating on the major aspects of a balanced persona; Physical health, Mental health, and Emotional Health. I like to call this whole process my, 'Hour of Power'. Catchy eh'?

My twenty minutes of exercise usually includes a light cardio workout, followed by stretching. I then move onto meditating. Clearing my mind and just trying think about nothing, and fair warning, this is a lot harder than you think. Once you do get the 'noise' under control though, it's wonderful. I'll give you more tips on this later. Lastly, I study the scriptures and different talks from the leaders of my church. Always find great advice within these resources, and by the time I get to the end of this stage, I usually have great new ideas to take care of those things stressing me out. I know not all of you are Latter-day Saints, so you'll need to find other good wholesome material, but I highly recommend any and all talks from the General Authorities of my church. Just good solid advice on life, always.

One last thing, after finishing up with your 'Hour of Power', sit down and enjoy a good book or movie. Nothing full of violence, intensity, sexual situations, or anything that really raises your heart rate. Make sure it is something that you can sort of continue your relaxation with, and that it's something that leaves you with a good feeling inside.

I encourage all of you to try out this method and see how it works for you. I then would like some feedback if you don't mind. I want to see how well this works for other people. Just post a comment about your experience. You can also share with everyone your own personal destressifying techniques if you like.

Ayaka

Alright, last week I promised something more artsy than a landscape shot or something minimalistic. So this week, I present to you Ayaka by cocacolagirlie. Yes, that is really their username. I don't really know what to say about this one, other than I just really like it for some reason. I think it's all of the colors splashed across the canvas and throughout her hair. I like color. Hopefully you do to. Enjoy!

Cream? Sugar? What Do You Like in Your MooKoo Joe?

If you follow me on twitter, or if you're my friend on facebook, you know I'm on vacation. Since it's kinda' tough to bring quality content to you without the benefit of a laptop or netbook, this post is going to turn the roles around a bit. I'm here to ask you, the readers, what it is you want more of. I'm going to continue to bring you the standard stuff: Enlightening posts come on Tuesdays or Thursdays, with the other being filled with an opinionated post, Wednesday of course is your wallpaper, and on Mondays a post about music. That leaves Fridays and Saturdays available to the topics of your choice!

So, what I want you to do now is: Post a comment to this article nominating a particular topic that you would like me to research and write about each Friday or Saturday. Get creative and don't be shy; All ideas are welcome. As an aspiring Journalist, I need all the experience I can get, so really, please, don't be afraid to suggest anything you like. Once I get back from my vacation, I'll tally up the nominations, and the top three will be put up to a vote. The winning topic will then become a new topic for you all, and myself, to explore. I'm really excited about this, so please, suggest some topics!

That still leaves one day; (The new topic will only take up one of the two: Friday or Saturday.) On this last day, I want to answer your questions. I have quite a few friends, in real life, that believe I give excellent advice; I'll let you all be the judge of that once I start answering your questions. Your identity of course will be kept completely anonymous, unless you so choose to reveal yourself. Questions, once again, can be about anything. I'll sift through the submissions, and answer one question a week. To submit a question, just click on the 'Contact' button at the top of the blog.

Just so you know, this is the type of stuff I want to do eventually for my career. I want to help people out with their daily troubles, by providing them with friendship, advice, and a refreshing cup of MooKoo Joe. So help me out would ya'? Submit some questions!

Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen

First off, shout out to Roger Ebert! This is what he has to say about the new Transformers movie:

"The battle scenes are bewildering. A Bot makes no visual sense anyway, but two or three tangled up together create an incomprehensible confusion. I find it amusing that creatures that can unfold out of a Camaro and stand four stories high do most of their fighting with...fists. Like I say, dumber than a box of staples. They have tiny little heads, except for one who is so ancient he has an aluminum beard."

My response to this quote: Mr. Ebert, you have no imagination and obviously know nothing about Transformers. They can displace mass (i.e., shrink and expand), combine with one another, and apply synthetic flesh. This ability to transform is reflected in the accompanying television programs' taglines: "More Than Meets the Eye" and "Robots in Disguise". All Transformers stories and characters, in a range of media, have been based around this core concept since the toy line's debut in 1984. For 25 years now, this has been the Transformers franchise's whole ideal. I'm pretty sure that you were a kid yourself once, I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure you were. When you were a kid, did it have to make sense? 'Nuff said. Now for my review!

Transformers, as I just pointed out, is for the boys. When making a movie for the boys, there are things you need, and things you don't need.

Things Your Movie Doesn’t Need
1.) It doesn't need the most logical plot.
2.) It doesn't need a lot of superb acting.
3.) It doesn't need realistic girls.

Things Your Movie Does Need
1.) You need a simple plot that doesn't take too much thinking to understand; I mean who can follow a complicated and logical plot, when mindless and down-to-earth violence is taking place?
2.) You need mindless and down-to-earth action and violence. You don't need actors that will make you feel what their characters are feeling; I mean you don't want to feel the punishment of being punched in the face right?
3.) It needs a bunch of non-realistic girls, and by that I mean really hot. This is the final ingredient to the perfect movie for the boys. If you beg to differ, then go watch a James Bond film; The standard for everything of what a boy's movie should be.

Now, that we know what we need for a good 'Movie for the Boys', and that Transfomers is indeed for the boys, let's run a checklist shall we?

1.) Simple plot that doesn't require much to think about. Let's admit it, the plot for Transformers is about as basic as you can get. Check.
2.) Awesome action and violence. Seriously, this movie has some of the best action sequences I've seen in a while. Check.
3.) Really hot girls. How about an entire co-ed dorm full, at Princeton, which is apparently a big party school? Also, Megan Fox. Check.

Personally, I think every 'Billy Bad-awesome' should drive an Audi, but Bond doesn't have one of those so we can't add that to the standards. I would like to mention though, that they totally have one of the Autobots as an Audi R8, just sayin'.

Okay, so we know it's for the boys, we know what is needed for something to work for the boys, and we now know, that Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen, has those things. Therefore, we know that this is an excellent film for the boys. With that being said, I think you should totally go and see it in theaters, just so you can get the full experience of all the amazing action.

As for the Buy/Rent/Pass status, I'm going to recommend a, 'Rent', actually. I may be a guy, and this movie may have been amazing to me, but I'm still a film fanatic. For me to give it a 'Buy' status, it does need to have a plot slightly thicker than what the Transformers offers. Example: the 'Bourne' series; It has a thick plot, full of mystery boxes, and makes it worth watching more than a few times.

Content Warnings: Two particular sexual innuendos. One: Some chick trying to get it on with Shia Lebouf. Two: Megan Fox bent over a motorcycle, quite seductively, in shorts that are short enough for you to basically see her crotch. There is a fair share of foul language as well, but not too much I guess.