Thursday, July 17, 2014

Favorite Quotes-Part 1

Well hello readers all! Some of you may know that on my sidebar is a scrolling collection of some quotes I put together, but as the list is far from complete I have decided to post a few more of my favorite quotes I have been putting together lately in my Commonplace Book, a quote book basically. So here they are, along with their author and location.

These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value. 
                                                   Thomas Paine (The American Crises Papers)

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade,all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to thing of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’; aim at earth and you will get neither.
                                                                        -C.S Lewis, Mere Christianity

He that cometh to seek after knowledge, with a mind to scorn, shall be sure to find matter for his humor, but no matter for his instruction. Advancement of Learning, Book I(1605)   -Francis Bacon


“To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinion which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”                                -Thomas Jefferson


All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in this world is for enough good men to do nothing.                                                     - (Edmund Burke)


“I am much afraid that schools will prove to be great gates of hell unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures, engraving them in the hearts of youth. I advise no one to place his child where the Scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in which men are not increasingly occupied with the Word of God must become corrupt.”                               
                                                                           -Martin Luther

 If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.                            -           
                                                             -C.S Lewis (Mere Christianity)

The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in charity there is no excess; neither can angel or man come in danger by it. F. B

Laws are made to guard the rights of the people, not to feed the lawyers. The laws should be read by all, known to all. Put them into shape, inform them with philosophy, reduce them in bulk, give them into every man's hand.                                           -Francis Bacon

Number itself importeth not much in armies, where the people are of weak courage; for (as Virgil says) it never troubles a wolf how many the sheep be.   -Francis Bacon

It may not always happen that our soldiers are citizens, and the multitude a body of reasonable men; virtue, as I have already remarked, it not hereditary, neither is it perpetual. Should an independency be brought about by the first of those means, we have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest, purest constitution on the face of the earth. We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand, and a race of men perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom from the event of a few months. The Reflexion is awful—and in this point of view, how trifling, how ridiculous, do the little paltry cavellings, of a few weak or interested men appear, when weighed against the business of a world.
                                          -Thomas Paine (The American Crises Papers)

I said just now that the question of Faith in this sense arises after a man has tried his level best to practice the Christian virtues and found that he fails, and seen that even if he could he would only be giving back to God was already God’s own…Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your action, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.   -C.S Lewis (Mere Christianity)                                                                              

The answer to that nonsense is that, if what you call your faith in Christ does not involve taking the slightest notice of what He says, then it is not Faith at all—not faith or trust in Him, but only intellectual acceptance of some theory about Him.          
                                                               -C.S Lewis  (Mere Christianity)

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith,
                                        -- 2 Timothy 4:7 (The Bible)


Thank-you for reading! If you would like to share your favorite quote or quotes, please comment below!

Friday, July 11, 2014

Sunshine Award Tag...Again.

Well friends and arch enemies, I have been tagged again by my good friend Rachael. I will keep my post brief however, and hopefully refrain from boring you with miscellaneous information about diverse and varied subjects concerning myself.

Here are the questions that were given me and my answers to them.

1. Favorite vacation?

A. Well, if you don't call camping trips vacations, then I would probably say the trip I took last year to Washington D.C. There was also a very memorable vacation in Turkey one year when I was about seven when we went to Fetiye, in southern Turkey that classifies as a real vacation.

2. Favorite ethnic food?

A. Vietnamese

3. What book are you currently reading?

A. Book or books? :) I am currently reading Moby Dick, (boring) Jane Eyre (okay) and He Is There and He is Not Silent by Francis Schaeffer (good)

4. Favorite movie or movie(s?)

A. LotR counts as one. Then there's the Bourne Trilogy, Son of God and We Were Soldiers.

5. What do you do in your spare time?

Play guitar, read books, listen to LOTS of music amongst various other classified activities.

6. What kind of music speaks to you personally?
 
A. It all depends on what mood I'm in, really. I will say that metal, reggae, rap and hard rock do NOT speak to me in the slightest. I like Josh Groban, Phil Wickham and soundtracks though. Occasionally a good classic rock song will speak to me as well though.  
 
7. Have you ever acted in a movie?
 
A. If home movies count, then yes, I have acted in at least five or six.
 
8. How many different genres of music do you have on Spotify and/or Grooveshark?
 
A. I have 12 different genres on Spotify but I tend not to group my music in playlists by genre, so I have more playlists than that. I have 9 different genres on Grooveshark.  
 
9. Do you have a job? If so, what is it or, if not, what would you like your job to be?
 
A. No, I do not. That is not to say that I do not work however. I would like to be a Search and Rescue pilot, but as that involves joining the Coast Guard and/or military forces, I would be okay with being a flight paramedic, or a pilot in some sort of helicopter service. (Ambulance, private, S&R, or other)
 
10. Favorite hiking experience?
 
A. Oh goodness, I've been on a lot. Probably the one that was supposed to be a 1.5 mile hike and turned out to be a six mile hike down in Oklahoma. That's not the reason I liked it though, I liked it because we ran all the down hill parts as fast as we could. (with various implements: knives, tomahawks etc.) in our hands) Then of course, we had to wait for the adults at the bottom of each hill, but it was a lot of fun. We raced the last half mile in a full our downhill run and THAT was a lot of fun!
 
11. Have you lived in any other states? If you have, where?
 
A. I have lived in other countries, but not other states.
 
12. Plans for your future?
 
I do not have any definite plans for my future. At some point I would like to get my pilot's license, paramedics training and have a family, but I have found that leaving that sort of thing up to God is far better than worrying and obsessing over it while a teenager.
 
13. Do you prefer strumming or picking on the guitar?
 
A. Picking, slapping and thumping. I'm a finger-style guitarist in training.
 
14.Something your parents have done that you wished you could have been alive to do with them?
 
A. Can't think of anything, but I do wish I could have gone to Rome with them when they went eight years or so ago.
 
 
Thank-you Rachael, for the tag. I hope my readers enjoyed it. I think I am going to refrain from tagging anyone else though, seeing as everybody has already been tagged at least once. If you would like to answer the questions above though, then feel free!

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Sunshine Award

 
Well, I was going to write the second part to my Good Movie series here, but I was nominated for the Sunshine Award by Isaac Benjamin so here I am with this post instead. Thank-you Isaac! After all, A Good Movie Part 2 can wait. :) 

The questions I was given and my answers to the same are as follows.

1. If you could go anywhere, where would you travel?

Does this question limit me to one place??? That's not very nice. :) Well, lately I have really been wanting to visit Normandy, France. I would love to walk the beaches made so famous by the Allied troops during the week of June 6th, 1944 and to see the numerous cemeteries honoring the fallen Allied and German soldiers who fell there. Plus, it would be a great opportunity to do some on-site research for my WWII book. There are many other places I would like to visit too, like Scotland and Rome.

2. If you could live in 1945 would you?

A. That all depends on where I'm living. J

3. Would you mind if there was less gravity on Earth?

I don't think I would mind. I've never experienced a planet with less gravity though, so I could never be sure. I imagine that it would take some getting used to. 

4. What is your favorite movie genre, (Kind of movie)?

That is a tough question. I really like Lord of the Rings and Narnia, but I watch very little fantasy other than that. I have seen many amazing and meaningful war movies, but that’s not really my genre either. Action is a pretty wide genre to state as a favorite, but that's probably the one that fits my interest best.

5. Who is your favorite author-director-artist?

I think I'll probably go ahead and answer two of those. As my readers are probably aware, Lord of the Rings is my favorite book(s) but I can't say that J.R.R Tolkien is my favorite author. Based entirely on the author, I think that Rafael Sabatini, and G.A Henty are probably my favorite. There are good authors, but I don’t really have a particular one that I love more than any other. C.S Lewis and Chesterton are really good too though. As you can probably see, that question is a bit difficult.

My favorite director is Steven Spielberg. He has done some movies I don’t like, but he has produced many good ones. I don’t really keep up on directors that much so I don’t have wide knowledge in that area. I must say that I like Peter Jackson too, for his admirable efforts with Tolkien’s books.

6. Favorite book series?

That’s easy. Lord of the Rings. But I have also enjoyed the Anne of Green Gables Series, The Tripods, Narnia and the Black Stallion series when I was younger.

7. If you could have had any other name, what would it be? 

A. Well, not to avoid or be a stick-in-the-mud, but I really like the name I have and I wouldn’t trade it for any other.


That’s all of them I think. The people I nominate are as follows:

Arwen at noble-maiden.blogspot.com


My questions for my readers:

1. If you could pick anywhere to live, where would it be?
2. If you could meet any author, who would it be?
3. What type of music do you like?
4. Best line from the Princess Bride?
5. How much quoting do you do every day?
6. Do you play any instruments? If so, what?
7. What is your favorite season of the year?
8. What is one of your biggest dreams in life? (i.e. skydiving, be a pilot, win the Kentucky Derby, etc. J)
9. What is your absolute favorite thing to do?
10. If you could be anywhere right now, where would it be?
11. Have you ever wanted to just get lost somewhere for a week or two?
12. Does a cat look like potential food to you? (I have a sense of humor, ok?)
13. If you could have had any other name, what would it be? '
Okay, I know this is a common question to ask, but I'm going to ask it anyway. 
14. What is you favorite color? 
15. What would be your dream career?

Monday, May 12, 2014

A Good Movie


Series: A Good Movie
Part 1: On Box Office Hits

            Throughout the years since TV was first invented, the public has been submitted to a variety of movies and theater presentations from silent films and musicals to epics and thrillers. Over time, our special effects, computer software and HD cameras have set the bar high in the technical department of the movie industry. With the invention of airplanes and faster modes of travel, film studios are now able to fly their cast and equipment to any set they choose, giving them the benefit of both equipment and location. Peter Jackson filmed both the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit epics in New Zealand, Spielberg filmed The Raiders of the Lost Ark in France, England and Tunisia, and more recently, Thor 2: The Dark World was filmed in England and Iceland. Unrestricted and unlimited, the modern film industry has been able to produce some of the world’s most advanced films in its history, creating movies with stunning special effects and stunts. However, is technological advancement the prerequisite of a good movie? And is it the reason that a movie is able to claim the title of a ‘classic’ as it grips the hearts and emotions of its viewers?

This, then, is the question before us: What gives a movie the necessary power to shock its viewers and send them out of the theater unable to forget what they have just seen? There are different ways that movie producers and directors attempt to make a movie memorable. Graphic movies, horror movies, suspense thrillers and dramas are a few of the ways, but is that kind of remembrance the one a good director or producer wants to leave with his audience? There are some who think that, but while I agree that you will definitely make the audience remember you, it is not just remembrance that you need to make a box office hit, and it is not just being a box office hit that makes a movie good.

In order to get on that chart of ‘top ten grossing movies’, your movie has to not only make it to the theaters, it also has to be watched by millions of people. In order to get that kind of audience, the movie doesn’t just have to be good—it has to be advertised and in order to do that you have to have connections, and not a little bit of money. There have been many good movies produced over the years that would have made more money if more people had known they existed. Not everyone in the world checks the theater every week to find out if any new movies have come in, and not all good movies even make it there. To be accepted to a theater, your movie has to be attractive and prospective to the owners of the theater. They have to believe that it will attract enough people to be worth their time, and if they don’t think it is going to do that, then they will replace it with a different movie. Once the movie makes it to the theaters, it will have to be advertised enough to get its initial audience. Once it does, the snowball starts rolling.

Once a movie makes it to the theater, it will be subjected to a variety of praise or criticism depending on the movie and popular culture at the time of its introduction. If the initial response is positive, then people will start talking about it and if enough people go to see it and share it on Facebook and other similar social media sites, the larger media will very likely pick up on it, and the snowball of fame will start growing. More people will go to see it, more people will praise or criticize it, more people will write reviews, and consequently, more people will hear about it and repeat that process. Assuming that the popular reaction to the movie is positive throughout all these stages of the process, it will become a box office hit. The purpose of the next section of this article is to define ‘positive’ in the phrase ‘positive reaction’ and to show you what that means and how it changes. The purpose of the third section of this article will be to show that being a box office hit can be an indication of a good movie, but it is not the fundamental or necessary factor in determining the quality of a movie. In the fourth section, we will discuss heroes and work on identifying the qualities that transform a protagonist into a hero. I will use the fifth section to wrap up my arguments and present them in an outlined fashion.

Thursday, May 1, 2014

The Queen and the Soldier


Hello everyone! I recorded this a while back but as I had an abundance of things to post on, I saved this one for a later point, which proves to be now. Hope you like it! I am taking song requests at the moment, so leave a comment if you are interested.