March 12th, 2009 - March 23th, 2009

I am currently doing a detox program in assistance with trying to better my eating habits as well as losing some of the excess weight I have put on in the past few years.  The experience has been interesting and very ‘rollercoaster’ like with ups and downs.  Please see my day-to-day progress and feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

This diet consists of not eating any refined sugar, tropical fruits, melons, flour, breads, peanuts, cheese and any foods that contain active cultures or yeast (ie - yoghurt, soy sauce).  The program also comes with a meal plan allowing to eat 20% protein and 80% starch and bulk forming foods (split into 3 columns).  However, fish is allowed at anytime of the day at any amount.  

Overall,  truth be told, I don’t feel any different than before.  I stuck to the diet and took the pills as per the instructions.  I feel satisfied knowing that I’m almost done my cleanse and I definitely feel that I’ve succeeded without guilt.  I also believe that most of the weight that I’ve lost is due to my excercise regime rather than the cleanse itself.

The really nice thing about this cleanse, though, is that you do think about what you eat and question every piece of food that gets shoved in your mouth.  It also does contribute to a healthier lifestyle as after 12 days of no sugar nor carbs, at the end, I really didn’t miss it.  Okay, that’s a straight out lie, I miss sugar!  However, not as much as I used to.  The program is pretty strict in terms of what you can and cannot eat.   

This program also keeps you regular.  It’s really bad the first few days but it definitely subsides down.  Any laxative would have been the same really.  

This cleanse is not for the faint of heart.  ;-)  Will I do it again?  Absolutely not. I rather stick to a healthy choices and excercise to feel cleansed that take 12 pills and 60 drops per day.  

Day 1

I started this program off not expecting much from in.  In fact, the first day, I ate sashimi without soy sauce (which does not taste all that good as I really appreciate the salt) and a dab of wasabi.  I didn’t have a chance to eat lunch at all which is probably my first mistake.  However, I bought some herbal tea (Our Compliments — Peach Melba & Tetley inspire — Summerberry) to go with the drops that came with the box of herbal pills.  I didn’t taste the drops at all using the flavoured teas (hint!).  I took the first 6 pills at around 10am and felt pretty good.  There were no headaches, cramping or other side effects… yet.  I sipped on water and tea for the rest of the day.  

During dinner, I went to a Vietnamese restaurant and had their Tofu Tom Yum soup.  However, after realizing that there was sugar in it, I only ended up only eating the tofu, bean sprouts, veggies and a few slices of lean beef.  Before the meal, I also took the 6 pills and added the 30 drops into my green tea (THAT was terrible, note to self, always go flavoured).  Since I didn’t eat much, my head was feeling a little dizzy.  I didn’t feel any different otherwise.  I ended up eating some Almonds and mixed nuts (no peanuts were harmed) and about 3 cups of plain popcorn.  

At around midnight, things started to turn, I was running to the bathroom and my stomach didn’t feel well at all.  It came in a sudden leaving ill time to prepare.  

Day 2

I also had to run to the bathroom in the morning, in a sudden frenzy of half-tired almost tripping over the cat kinda way. After that attack, I felt quite significantly better and weighing myself it seemed that I lost about 3 lbs of water weight.  I made some oatmeal in the morning (plain rolled oats) and took the 6 pills again.  I added the 30 drops into all natural fruit juice (only about 1/4 of a cup) and drank it like a shot.  I still tasted the herbal drops, but it wasn’t as bad as drinking it with the green tea.  

The rest of the day and the afternoon were ups and downs of very tired to having a lot of energy.  Again, no headache this day and bathroom adventures have not started yet.  I did feel a little dizzy and spacey on and off during the day though.  Regardless, nothing too crazy.  

I ended up going to the gym today.  No doubt, I didn’t have as much energy as I normally do.  I believe this is pertained to the fact that I don’t have any carbs in my diet right now and it’s taking a toll on me.  I worked out the same speed and resistance as well as adding weights.  I was tired much faster while doing my normal 1 hour of cardio.  In terms of weights, I didn’t do more nor less than I would do on a given day.

I returned home to eat vegetables (asparagus), chicken and turkey breasts along with my 6 pills and the 30 drops of terrible licorice crap.  I’m now feeling very sleepy but yet no problems in terms of bathroom requirements or like.  I am eating almonds for snack food and drinking herbal tea pretty much all day.  Around midnight, still felt  hungry I went out with my friends and had sashimi (without soy sauce) and a salmon tomiko roll (raw salmon rolled with veggies and tomiko).  

Day 3

In the morning, I felt more tired than usual and ended up in the bathroom around 10am.  I was so tired I went back to bed again until 1am.  I realized that I’m not tracking my process properly if we didn’t know how much in fat loss and water loss is happening during this program.  So, I’m deciding to track my morning weigh-ins.

Morning weigh in:

Weight:  168
Fat percentage:  37.5
Water percentage:  43.5%

I will average out the losses at the end of the program.

at around 1:45, I made oatmeal with nuts and strawberries taking my usual 6 pills again.  I get nauseated thinking about the taking the pills as I know how bad all of them taste as well as those drops.  Also, I feel that I’m eating a lot more than usual because anytime I get a craving, I would grab the nuts and munch on them for a while.  

The rest of the day, I felt sleepy and needed to return to bed for a nap.  My body is exhausted which hardly happens.  I had plans to go to the gym amoungst finishing my homework for school but never seemed to happen.  Now it’s 7pm and my time is running out as I’m preparing to go to a birthday party in North York.  It almost feels like I’m about to get a cold or flu.  Normally, having to nap throughout the day means that my body is fighting a bug.  I know my body well enough to decipher that.  As well, I’m finding it difficult to concentrate on tasks.  Homework assignments are taking me a ridiculously long time where normally I can get it out within an hour or so.  

I was doing some research online that was saying that the Laxaherb shouldn’t be taken longer than 7 days.  I find it interesting that in this program, you must take 4 pills for 12 days.  Seems pretty distressing.  

I took my 6 pills at 8pm (with the drops) and ate it with a few pieces of turkey.  I have a slight headache , feel a little dizzy and not feeling all that wonderful.  I’m also still tired.  I can’t wait to return back to my normal supplements (Every Woman Multi-Vitamins).

Day 4

Morning weigh in:

Weight:  166
Fat percentage:  37
Water percentage:  42.5

Today didn’t suck as much as the last 3 days.  I didn’t feel nearly as tired getting up in the morning and had a little bit of energy at 10:30 doing my homework.  I got up and took the same pill amount eating an apple with it.  At around 1 o’clock, I decided to go to the gym.  I did about 1 hour and 10 minutes there in 40 and 30 minute intervals.  I also did about 40 minutes of weight training without too much trouble.  Although, I admit that the first 40 minutes were quite diffcult, I was able to still get through it.

I came back to take the combination of pills again right before dinner.  I ended up eating sashimi and edamame.  I was still hungry!  So, continued to a boiled egg that was marinated with a glass of iced lemon green tea.  I was STILL hungry and around midnight I had chinese broccoli and beef with blended strawberry kiwi fruit drink.

At 2am, I was pooped out!  I’m ready for bed.  I had a bad case of needing to take jogs to the bathroom this evening and hope that by tomorrow that will subside.

Day 5

Morning weigh in:

Weight:  168
Fat percentage:  36
Water percentage:  45

I’ve been eating so much lately!  Phew.  I feel like I’m just craving everything.  Going out to restaurants are just impossible trying to figure out what is in their dish and whether or not there’s sugar or starch.  So far, every time we’ve gone out, I’ve had sashimi or salads.  It gets pretty boring after awhile.  

Today has been alright.  Nothing significant to report in terms of tiredness, bathroom horrors or such.  I had oatmeal, strawberries and almonds for breakfast.  

When I got to work, I was very focused today on tasks at hand.  Now, the problem I found with this is that if there’s someone speaking really loudly on the other side of the office, it would be distracting and make me VERY irritated.  

At lunch, I had a lemon vinegrette salad with toasted almonds on top as well as a home made tomato vegetable soup with white beans.  I also snacked on nuts for the rest of day and sipped herbal tea.  I think I’m going to get FAT on nuts!  It’s tough to snack on anything else really.

I went to the gym, and I hate going there on Mondays cause it’s almost *always* packed.  There were no cardio machines left.  I ended up doing 10 mins of rowing, 20 minutes of biking and 30 minutes of eliptical.  There was no room to do weights so I decided to wait until tomorrow.   

Dinner, once again accompanying my set of pills, I had sashimi (surprise!) with beef sashimi.  Further to such, we decided to go see a movie and I had 3/4 of plain popcorn from the theatre.  

When I got home around 1:30, when my head hit the pillow, I was out like a light.

Day 6

Morning weigh in:

Weight:  167
Fat percentage:  36
Water percentage:  44

I’m a exhausted this morning.  I couldn’t get up.  In fact, I was so tired that I felt sick almost.  However, I sneered and went to work.  Throughout the day, I was yawning.  All through the day people must have been wondering what in heavens I did the night before.  Sadly, nothing exciting.  I had my pills with an apple and natural juice.  

For lunch, once again, I had my lemon vinegrette with almonds and a chicken, apple, leek soup.  I was contemplating on not eating the soup since it had mushrooms in it, but I decided to eat around the mushrooms instead.  

I am noticing that I do not have to go to the bathroom as much now and I am actually getting pre-warned when I do have to go.  It’s also better as it’s now more of a solidify state.

Also, the constant munching of nuts is driving me crazy!  

I went to the gym for only 45 minutes today as I was late for a birthday dinner.  I also forgot my herbal pills with me so I had to go home to get it.  I had the pills with filtered water and the drops with juice.  During dinner, I ate cooked salmon with seasonal vegetables at Milestones (downtown Toronto at Dundas Square — don’t bother going there, btw, the staff is rude).  

Now, I’m home, feeling more tired and ready to pass out.  

Day 7

Morning weigh in:

Weight:  165
Fat percentage:  35
Water percentage:  43

So far, so good.  This morning I woke up very early in the morning!  In fact, I woke up earlier than my alarm which is a rarity in itself.  I feel pretty good — took the gross and terrible pills with water and drops with all natural fruit beverages and continued with my day.  It’s pretty clear that the fluctionation in water has been up and down.  Although my diet has been pretty steady and I’m sticking to the meal plan, I feel that the major losses in weight is in water.  My fat percentage is mostly due to me working out and since I’m doing at least 1 hour of cardio with an added 40 minutes or more of weights, there’s no reason why I wouldn’t be losing fat mass.

At lunch, I had edamame (soy beans, boiled and salted) with chicken and turkey.  To augment it, I also had an apple.  I’ve also been eating a lot due to the fact that I haven’t smoked in over 1 week now!  Yes, dieting, cleansing and trying to quit smoking.  You’d think I’m nuts, right?  Well, I am!  

I must have eaten about 200g of nuts this afternoon as well.  That certainly didn’t help.  Then I had an herbal tea and off to the gym I went.  The gym was the same as usual, nothing to report there.

At dinner time, we decided to go to a Japanese restaurant in town called “New Generation” (it’s pretty good and open late [until 3am] if anyone is ever interested and in the Toronto area).  I forgot my herbal pills and ended up taking them when I got home that evening.  I added the drops with Orange Herbal tea (Wow, that’s good stuff!).  

Day 8

Morning weigh in:

Weight:  165
Fat percentage:  35
Water percentage:  43

Yay, day 8 — I’ve much surpassed my half way mark and am I ever glad.  I’m counting the next 4 days by the minutes until this cleanse is over.  Then, I’m going to eat a gigantic cake!  Chocolate!  Okay, probably not, but I’ll likely have a piece of candy or similar.  It feels promising knowing that there are less pills in the bottle and I can see an end.  

 I woke up very early this morning, hours before my alarm could even go off.  I’m not feeling tired more than I probably just have my adrenaline going due to an issue at school.  Nevertheless, I decided to try to sleep for another couple of hours — which I managed to do successfully.  In fact, it was so successful, that I dreamt of cake, sugar and pasta.  Yikes.  That’s not a good sign.  

For lunch, I had mixed steam veggies and skinless chicken thigh.  I also had 2 hard boiled eggs accompanied with my Tangerine-Orange Zinger herbal tea.  Mmm.  I’m really digging the tea.  

I had to go to a going away shindig and decided to forego the gym today.  

During dinner, I had steamed veggies, steak and sweet potatoes.  I had fresh squeezed orange Juice with the herbal pills.  I also decided to watch the movie “One Week” (Canadian flick featuring Joshua Jackson) and had a small bag of popcorn.

Day 9

Morning weigh in:

Weight:  165
Fat percentage:  35
Water percentage:  47

This morning was a little exhausting after a long evening, but overall I was able to wake up pretty early and get on with my day.  I had a few pieces of grapefruit right in the morning with the pills and attempted the drops with “African Nectar” from Mighty Leaf which was a peach nectar — I really did not enjoy that tea.  It was terrible.  What a shame considering how much Mighty Leaf costs.

For lunch, I had a really hearty chilli that was super spicy!  Mmm, was that ever tasty.  The rest of the day went on just fine.  I was able to complete all of my work and still have room to do some research for school.

I went to the gym and did 1 hour of cardio, 45 minutes of weights.  When I came home, I also ran up 18 flights of stairs and 24 flights down.  So, a lot of activity today indeed.

Dinner was fresh squeezed OJ with the herbal pills and Tazo Wild “Sweet Orange” from Starbucks.  The tea was fantastic and definitely beat out the African Nectar variety.  Then, SURPRISE, went to eat Sushi at New Gen.  I had cold tofu, pan fried shrimp with garlic and butter and my salmon tabiko again.  

I’m happy this diet is almost over.  This has been the longest 12 days ever.

Day 10

Morning weigh in:

Weight:  165
Fat percentage:  35
Water percentage:  47

Alright!  I made it into the 2 digit days.  This is a good sign indeed.  I’m definitely excited for me to complete this program.  I woke up around 10:30 in the morning and was feeling pretty decent.  I had a going away dimsum brunch at Sam Woo in Mississauga.  The food there is really good but talk about not being able to eat anything.  Practically everything was wrapped in rice, had sugar or was starched.  I only ended up eating about 3 - 4 pieces and a bunch of tripe.  I had my pills in the morning with water as usual.  

The program said not to take any multivitamins in this diet, although, I was feeling pretty sluggish throughout mid-day.  When I asked the nutritionist, I was told to take my vitamins during this program.  Thus, as of today, I will be taking multivitamins with my pills.  

Brunch was okay sized and didn’t eat anything else for lunch.  Although, at around 7ish, I had a couple pieces of asian pears.  They were delish!  

Monte and I were about to hit the gym around 9 when we realized that all gyms, including the 24 hour ones, are closed on weekends.  We decided to go to Markham and eat some Shabu Shabu (Japanese hotpot).  Not only was it healthy, it was just so tasty.  I had the “house special” with included seafood, lamb, chicken and a whole plate of vegetables.  I felt cleansed after that meal. 

I did some homework and slept around 3:30am.

Day 11

One more day left!  

Morning weigh in:

Weight:  165
Fat percentage:  35
Water percentage:  47

Sadly, my weight has not changed since the beginning.  Took pills with lime herbal tea and filtered water.  I went to the gym to excercise and spent 65 minutes on the cardio machine on a very hard workout (mostly all cardio).  I felt alright — though I should have eaten a little bit more for breakfast.

I didn’t get a chance to eat lunch and went straight to dinner at Momiji All you can eat japanese restaurant.  Sadly, there wasn’t too much I was able to eat there.  I only ate the sashimi with wasabi and that’s about it.  I  peeled off the tempura batter on the yams and ate that too.  Other than that, everyone was pretty stuffed except for me.  :-)  We had too much food and WAY too many hand rolls.  I had the pills with water and the drops in the green tea. 

I finished off my homework and off to bed I go. 

Day 12

I MADE IT!!!!!!  Final day. 

Morning weigh in:

Weight:  163
Fat percentage:  36.5
Water percentage:  44

As you can see, I shed a lot of water here and therefore am weighing less. Since this, the depiction of the fat percentage is now skewed.  The body fat monitor sends short pulses throughout the body to measure the amount of fat, water and muscle.  It does so by calculating how fast the current moves. The faster the current, the more water you have in your body.  

I had Oatmeal with mixed nuts today for breakfast and took the 6 pills with fresh squeezed OJ.  I drank the drops with my orange herbal tea.   Mmm, so tasty.  I can see the end!  The gold at the end of the rainbow.  

For lunch, I had very spicy chili, grapefruit juice and a garden salad with lemon pepper vinegrette.  I also had an expresso after the meal as well. I ended up going to the gym and doing cardio for 40 minutes + 20 minutes of weights.  I was pretty exhausted after the first 30 minutes of cardio maybe because I did such a long and hard cardio session the day before.

For dinner, I had a house vinegrette salad with chicken and onions at The Grille.  I couldn’t even finish all of it and left about 1/3 left.   It was a perfect ending to a decent 12 days of very difficult will power.  

Next Steps

I will be posting my results after 1 week and then 1 month to give you an idea of how I’m fairing with the new cleansed me.  I will also give you some results on my cravings the day after the cleanse.  Stay tuned!

One week Later

I admit, I’m so much happier eating the foods that I love to eat (just in moderation).  The small amount of sugar and tropical fruits is a great start and allows me to just feel like myself again.  Feel happy even.  My gym workouts are still on the rise and my love for food hasn’t changed any.  I’ve definitely eaten MORE and binged since last week though since I felt deprived of all the different foods that I was eating.  Again, this was an interesting experience but not a very worthwhile endeavor for me.  I don’t feel any different than I did and honestly, I feel like my body is in shock after going from no carbs and back to normal food again.  At a short point after the cleanse was over, I had some problems breathing properly.  

Since then, I haven’t lost too much in terms of weight, but I certainly feel human again.  

We went to watch this highly anticipated movie at 12:01 on Friday morning (very late on Thursday).  Going into the packed theatre hearing popcorn being chewed beside me, I went in with no expectations.  I think if I went in with high expectations, 4.5/10 would be considered generous.  

What’s I hate about movie are self indulgent director’s like Zack Snyder whom had to advertise his work in mid-movie (ie - 300).  The editing of the movie seemed to have been done poorly leaving maybe too little time for post-production and proper focus group prior to going out to the masses.  From my understanding, this movie jumped to different studios and actors/actresses.  From the articles that I have been reading Hilary Swank and Joaquin Pheonix signed on but left mid-way when there were changes in directors.  My, were they lucky to have made the right choice.

This movie was based on Alan Moore’s book “The Watchman” which is an action/fiction/mystery set in the mid-80’s.  The movie tried to tie historical figures in political warfare and nuclear attacks against the USA vs. USSR.  All of which, human nature was to be blamed for all the carnage set forth creating an unpeaceful world.  

Retired masked vigilantes come back into the world when the doom’s day clock nears.  While one of the members of the costumed crusaders (The Comedian) get murdered, conspiricy theories begin to settle with Rorschach and attempts to reunite the team.  Only one of which, Dr. Manhattan, has ultra super powers that were used to save the earth from humanity in the past.  The super powers had come from an accident while being locked in an nuclear room returning back to a form that mimicked an electronic blue super being.  

There are also further main characters had large roles but not noteworthy enough to be truly be shone in a positive light.  Silk Spectre, Dr. Manhattan’s lover and Nite Owl, a mechnical genius who helps and try to save the world from nuclear warfare.

The effects in the movie were mediocre at best, it seemed as though they lost interest at the end of the movie.  Furthermore, the movie was TERRIBLY disjointed and bordering soft-core-porn.  It is very difficult to take a big blue naked man very seriously.  If there was no sex in the film, it was scene after scene of brutal beating with terrible narration to even keep it interesting.  At 1/2 way through the movie, I was already checking to see what time it was and how long more until it ended.  Though there were some witty portions of the film, little kept my entertained.  One part of the movie happened in a dream, in Mars, where Spectre and Nite Owl were naked looking and gazing into each other’s eyes then waking up in a cold sweat.  How that had any metophorical impact on the storyline or the reasoning behind that scene was hardly defined properly.  As well, the sex scene in mid-movie was MUCH too long and useless and more than 1/3 of the movie could have been condensed for better effect overall.

Zack Snyder must have rushed through this movie as there were just too many counterproductive scenes for it to remain interesting.  What a shame that this film will still make hundred of millions.  Want to see a great movie based on Moore’s book, try “V for Vendetta” instead.  However, I wanted to add the caveat that those who read the book will definitely enjoy it more than those who have not as you can anticipate the long drawn nature of the character developments.  

In the past little while, comic book movies have really taken off and mostly for good entertainment (even cheesy) value.  There’s nothing wrong with that!  So, if you wish to spend 2 hours and 43 twitching in your seat anticipating the end, this movie is for you.  

OVERALL:  9/10
Game Play:  10/10 (Both online/offline)
Graphics:  6/10
Sound:  8/10
Controls:  6/10
Value to own:  Yes
Replayability:  Yes, or at least until SF5 comes out.

This would have to be one of my highly anticipated to get game of this year.  I have to admit that I  skipped SF3 along with all the other spinoffs/sequels in the series because I just thought the gameplays and controls for them just seems to have been overly done.  Now I have attempted to try and play through them but it just didn’t seem to stick with me like this one did.  It felt like something was missing from the classic SF2 formula they tried so hard to improve.  With SF4, I think Capcom may have realised that and decided to go back to the root of it all.  I think they’ve decided to go back with the funfactor that we’ve all enjoyed back in the 90s instead of just throwing in 20+ characters with cheesy sound effects and bright coloured backgrounds that are just annoying.  It has been many years, since a proper sequel should come along.  If I had a say in this, then I would definitely say this should be the true SF3 or a SF2 update/remake.

The game play is great, it has brought back all of it’s old features and added bits of the funky new stuff.  Like any/most fighting games, it has to be enjoyable in either single or online multiplayer mode.  I’ll start off by talking about the story mode.  Like most games of this kind you just pick a character and just fight your way through.  Well, in SF4 they’ve manage to grab the gamers attention by focusing on the character by including an animated prologue for each of the characters, thus making the players feel more involved.  The animated/cinematic sequences will be shown at the start and end for each character you choose to play with, which I think would have been a lot better if they had made more sense but other than that it was still fun to watch.  It helps keeps the game entertaining but only good until you beat the game with every character.  An addition to that in story mode is near the end before you fight the final boss.  Each character has their own rivals that they have to square off against, it plays as a second last boss before you face off against Seth.  The controls for all the characters are all the same if you’ve been following the franchise since the beginning.  The only new thing they’ve added this time around is the Ultra Combo which is basically a finishing move or a move that can help you bring your opponent’s health down half way if you are losing.  Other than that all the rest are pretty much the same.  Now, here is my favorite part which I thought was the best update in the game, the multiplayer mode.  In multiplayer mode you can either play for fun to train yourself with another player or if you like a challenge then you should definitely join a ranked game.  There is a feature which I have not seen in any other fighting game which is you can set it up so that you can challenge players that are really good or players that are at the same level as you.  I think that it’s awesome that you can do this because I am sick just joining a game and having someone beat the crap out of me because they play this game more than they take a shower a day.  So it gives you that opportunity for that evenly fair online bout with someone half way around the world, whom maybe a 5-years old kid.  Also, in ranked mode you collect points to show how experienced you are as a player and you can collect icons and titles to customize your style of playing.  The other modes are pretty much what they are, for example, VS mode and Training Mode so unless you’ve been living under a rock somewhere I will not touch upon that in this review.

The graphics is interesting but not the best in my opinion.  They wanted to give it that updated 2D look in a 3D environment.  I would have to say the best part would have to be the backgrounds for each level, unfortunately there wasn’t that many there to begin with.  The characters themselves looks very bulky and odd, you either look like a bumpy sack of potatoes or you just look like a cartoon balloon on screen.  I find most people I know seems to enjoy the backgrounds and cinematics more enjoyable than the character designs.  In some levels the backgrounds are quiet interactive to what you do, from slamming an opponent down hard and wacthing people fall into the ring to breaking a wing off an airplane with an upper cut.  All in all, great but I think with games like Soul Calibur, I think Capcom could have done better.

The sound for the game sounds very old skool and I like that because that was the best part of it all.  I am sure as you are reading this you can still hum all the levels theme songs from SF2.  Well, in SF4, consider them to be remixes of the old stuff.  You can faintly hear the original midi sounds mixed in with the modern drums and rock guitar.  Nothing much I can say about the sounds from kicking and punching in the game, they all sound similar if not exactly the same as SF2.  The voice overs like most voiceover for any import games sounds pretty bad, but don’t worry once you beat the game first time around you will be able to go into the option menu and change it to the original japanese and turn on the subtitles to enjoy the cinematic prologues and endings.

The controls brings back some more painful but yet sustainable memories.  Remember all those blistering thumbs, the locked wrists and the painful feeling from the tip of your fingers from button smashing.  You’ve guess it they all come back.  I have tried both the Xbox360 version and PS3 version and I found the PS3 controller to be more suitable and easier to use than the Xbox360.  The controls on the PS3 will remind you a lot like the SNES controller when SF2 was first played and the Xbox360 will play like the Genisis.  Overall, if you are aggressive player you’ll probably be feeling it the above symptoms in about 20-30 minutes of gameplay.

So the games comes in two version, a standard version which is pretty much just the game obviously and a collector’s edition which is about $20CDN more than  the standard.  The collector’s edition includes a stradegy guide for only the 4 new characters, a soundtrack, an animated SF4 movie and a figurine (Ryu on the PS3 version and Crimson Viper on Xbox360 version).  I thought that purchasing the collector’s edition was well worth the price because of the $20CDN difference.  The soundtrack was alright nothing very impressive other than for working out in the gym.  The figurine was kind of neat, very small but very well made interms of the detailed spent on the art work.  The animated feature was ok but too bad it wasnt long enough, only an hour long feature but entertaining.  My final thoughts on this game is pretty awesome.  Capcom has indeed come a long way with trials and errors with coming up with a game as great as this.  There are some minor issues with the game but nothing major that will make you put this game away.  Definitely go out there and pick it up if you didnt already have it.  My advice is don’t even waste your time renting it because the game is just too much fun and addictive to play.

OVERALL: 9/10

Plot: 8/10
Cinematography: 9.5/10
Entertainment value: 9/10
Movie to wait for DVD:  Should be watched first in the theatre.
Rewatchability: Yes, for the cinematography
Movie to purchase:  Yes.

An uneducated streetkid wins millions in “Who wants to be a Millionaire” TV show.  Is he a genius?  Did he cheat?  Was it luck?  Or is it true destiny?  A romantic drama emerges from this epic tale.  

I absolutely love it when an underdog movie comes up from no where and takes all of the prizes and surprise the masses.  When I first saw the title of this movie, I didn’t want to watch it.  In fact, I thought it was an Italian Mob movie.  You’re constantly tapping your toes trying to figure out what’s next.  The cinematography was simply *outstanding*.  Somehow, I was at the edge of my seat for the absolute entirety which doesn’t happen nearly enough in movies.  I was captivated and the movie was just pure poetry for me.

What I truly enjoyed about this movie was really the true simplicity of the storyline and how everything flowed together in a ‘flash back’ type scenes.  Flipping back and forth from memories of the childhood through in a chronological fashion with a story ending with the current situation at hand.  This is by no feat of creativity ingenuity as it’s certainly been done before.  However, because of the sub storylines between each of the major plot was interesting enough to keep anyone’s attention, it allowed for neverending eyes glued to the screen and never want to blink flick.  Awesome.

Character development is truly done well.  The casting made you believe each character’s character and personality.  The actors and actresses of different age groups from 5 - 95 are truly talented.  The children in the film, apparently, have been recruited in Indian’s poorer community to play characters in the film.  There should have been awards that were handed to them indeed.  

The movie takes place in India where the a kid, Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), from the slums went onto a popular local TV version of “Who wants to be a Millionaire”.  In the show, he comes off as a brilliant savant that was able to answer questions that doctors and lawyers never get past.  Taken into a back room, they suspect that Jamal was cheating and the opening seen starts with a graphic scene where he’s being tortured to attempt to get him to admit to his cheating ways.  Jamal was on his way to winning 20 million rupees!

The scenary in the movie was spectacular.  Colours that light up the screen, flashes of brilliance in directing, Danny Boyle was completely in his element.  The scene moving from current to his memories of flashbacks of when he was a child.  The flashbacks were completely synchronized from when Jamal and his brother, Salim (Madhur Mittal), grew up, shaping and seeing how each characterize in their own personalities.  Salim gets painted in a light that made him aggressive and therefore playing a thug and antagonist through bits and peices of the movie.  Yet, he’s also protrayed as a good kid trying to look out for the family.  

This love story shows that Jamal looks for the love of his live, Latika (Freida Pinto) from when they were very young, homeless, and trying to survive.  With all the heartache that Jamal goes through, we see his life through a first point of view as he remembers each painful story of his life.  The tragic scenes of how they were captured, released, looking for food and cheating tourists just made this film a genius in the making.

Overall, this movie is a visual wonder.  You see different scenes running, moving, from highs to lows.  From a sensitive overall scene that jumps into a tragic or funny storyline.  The movie had a little of everything for everyone.  Love, laughter, sadness, happiness, life and magic.  At the end of the day, the kids in the movie were no less wonderful in the entire film, the geekiness of Dev Patel and his hidden shyness really shined and everyone in the entire movie should really be applaused for their skill.  I sure hope that the kids in the movie will be seen again on the big screen.  They were, afterall, 50% of the movie.

If that wasn’t enough of a Bollywood movie being taken place in India, the ending scene will sincerely help end it off properly.  Bravo Mr. Boyle!  

Go watch it.  You won’t regret seeing this on the big screen (or the little screen at home).

Official Site/Trailer

!! WARNING:  May contains spoilers !!

OVERALL: 7/10

Plot: 7/10
Cinematography: 7/10
Entertainment value: 7/10
Movie to wait for DVD:  Should be watched first in the theatre.
Rewatchability: Yes, but only for the action.
Movie to purchase:  Yes.

With the ‘comic-to-film’ fad constantly rising in popularity and television show ‘Heroes’ getting a lot of attention.  Why not come out with a feature film that has a very similar aspect of the two I just mentioned.  In Push, you have a movie with people with super human abilities and you have the government pursuing them, to turn them into super soldiers to help serve the military.  Sounds pretty familiar doesn’t it?  So what’s the difference between the movie and the stuff we’ve seen before?  Well, they take the great ideas from the show/comic books with the attempt of making something original.  Instead of not only having the ususal plot of having people with powers come togther and saving the world from total destruction.  They have these people avoiding to be caught by the government and from being treated like lab rats/slaves for the benefits of war.  Which I thought was pretty interesting way of doing this because it gives the film not only the usual sci-fi theme, but also adds a little thrill to help keep things going.

The plot of the movie is about a guy named Nick Grant, who is played by Chris Evans, about how his life has just been a total mess from running from the government after witnessing the death of his father when he was a boy.  He then randomly meets a young girl named Cassie Holmes, who is played by Dakota Fanning, whom she requires help from saving her mother.  Nick is considered to be a ’mover’ because of his telekinetic abilities and Cassie is considered to be a ‘watcher’ because of her abilities to see visions of the future.  Nick at first wanted to be left alone but Cassie needs him because the future she sees requires Nick’s assistant to fight against the government and hopefully end the slavery of people, like them, who has special abilities.  Meanwhile, you have Henry Carver a government agent, played by Djimon Hounsou, who is trying to track down another girl named Kira Hudson, played by Camilla Belle, who has just escaped from captivity by the US government along with the serum that she had stole.  The movie takes place in Hong Kong and so obviously the story will then intertwines with the Hong Kong mobs looking for that serum as well.  So the chase it on to see whoever finds the serum first.  Find the serum and save the world.

Push is a pretty enjoyable sci-fi/thriller and sometimes tongue-in-cheek funny parts.  Like critics say ‘It’s the first action movie of 2009′ which was a good because the last couple of action films that came out have been pretty bad.  This is a must see for action fans and the story within the film makes the it more enjoyable to watch on the big screen. 

Official Site/Trailer

!! WARNING:  May contains spoilers !!

OVERALL: 7.0/10

Plot: 7/10
Cinematography: 8/10
Entertainment value: 7.5/10
Movie to wait for DVD:  Maybe
Rewatchability: It’ll take sometime in coming back to this one.
Movie to purchase:  Not really.

This is a type of film that is on the borderline between a movie you will most definitely see or you won’t go see it at all.  The reason why I say that is beause most people I’ve mentioned this film to has either not heard of this film, probably due to the lack of advertisement, or  just knows it as ‘the new Clive Owen film’ and dont know what the film is about.  Honestly speaking, this wasn’t really the film I was planning to go see that day.  Like I had mentioned above I didn’t even really remember that this film is out until I checked the listings for the theatre.  I wasn’t really interested in the film to begin with, but I’d figure it’s been awhile since I’ve seen an action/thriller/drama so why not.  That said, I will honestly admit that I was expecting this movie to be average.  Thankfully, I was proven wrong after the film ended.

The film was inspired by the events that happened in the 80s right in to the early 90s with the BCCI aka Bank of Credit & Commerce International) bank scandal.  This is about one of the world’s biggest banks was behind weapons trade with countries at war and is killing off people who knows about it and trying to expose the bank to the public about it’s under the table deals around the world.  The story follows an Interpol Agent played by Clive Owen and a New York DA played by Naomi Watts, they team up on investigating the BCCI for what they are involved with and plans on bringing down the bank.  Out of the two characters Clive Owen’s character seems to have more of a vendetta with the bank because of his failed attempt to exposing the bank which cost him his job and the death of his partner.

The pace of the film is pretty fast and well done because usually films like this tends to lose their audiences half way into the story.  Once you sit down and the movie starts the suspense begins.  The chase and investigations in the movie happens globally so expect plenty of site seeing through the film.  What I liked most was the dialogues in the film and how extremely well they are written.  The best way to describe this film is, it’s Jason Bourne/James Bond with a little dose of CSI/Law & Order mixed in with Consipiracy Theory.  Now, if you’ve seen those films/shows then you’ll know what to expect.  I definitely would recommend seeing this film in the theatres for the feel from a big screen because it’ll have you on the edge of your seat!

Fashion, form and fit.  Everything the Apple Air was hoping to go for but ended up being much too expensive.  We may not know what the future holds for us, but let’s face it, we know that technology is getting smaller, thiner, faster and more powerful.  Each device has more packed into it and offers greater capacity and functionality.  Just a few years ago, we wouldn’t even have understood what our lives would be like without an iPhone.  Yet, today, so many people depend on it.  

I recently purchased an HP 1035NR 10.2″ notebook.  It fits nicely in my purse along with my other crap that floats around there (speaking of which, I need a new purse).  Included in my purse is my Archos, Blackberry Curve, keys, wallet, USB key, Swiss Army knife, cheque book and writing pad.  I would have never thought the day would have come where as part of my accessories, a full fledged computer could fit snuggly in my purse so that I could have SSH on a fully operational OS in the palm of my hands.  The day has come, and I’m glad it did!

So what’s so exciting in this era of computing?  The possibilities it holds for portable computing.  These massive laptops that were once so popular amounst the “desktop replaces” will die off much like the dinosaurs as we get in tune with faster processors on smaller screens reproducing HD like quality.  As well, with the technology of OLED (and it’s transparency) and thiness, we shall be seeing paper like foldable computers that will be a feather but have a full-sized keyboard.  More than that will be it’s multi-touch capabilities.  In fact, it’s so real, we’ve been promised that the ASUS Eee PC T91/T101 Multitouch Netbook will be out Q1 this year (April, May?).  

http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/06/eee-pc-t91-convertible-tablet-lives/

As well, with the promise of Windows 7 coming out by January 2010 (or even as EARLY as December 2009), we may be seeing these OS’s being sported on these new netbooks.  

I’d love to see what Apple is coming out with to compete with these little Netbooks, maybe a 7″ iPhone?  That would certainly interest me if there was some form of decent keyboard that could be an add-on.  Or if Blackberry can get it’s act together and release a more intuitive and easier on the eyes device that could do a better job than the “click touch”, it’d certainly be another choice as well.  

Regardless, I do think that we will be seeing a lot of different small and mobile devices with over 8 hours of battery life soon on the shelves.  No one wants to carry a 8 lb computer around!  Let’s keep it a 2lb and that’d be able to keep me happy!

Love to hear people’s thoughts on this.  

!! WARNING:  May contains spoilers !!

OVERALL: 7.5/10

Plot: 7/10
Cinematography: 6/10
Entertainment value: 8.5/10
Movie to wait for DVD:  Maybe
Rewatchability: Yes, LOL kind of movie
Movie to purchase:  Definitely a good addition to my comedy collection

I watched this movie with a bunch of my single friends on Valentines day.  I was in a line full of couples awaiting movie about shopping fanatics and a world of product manufacturing.  This movie had perfect timing for 2 specific reasons:  (1)  Valentines day for the women out there and  (2) the consumer based shopping culture and credit issues that ends up running our lives.  This movie was based on a novel by Madeleine Wickham who writes under the pseudonym Sophie Kinsella.  

There are very few movies that make me laugh out loud.  Really, laugh out loud.  This was one of those movies that was so silly, it was funny and charming that it made all of us laugh our hearts out.  Isla Fisher was certainly perfect for the role.  She lit up the sincere and cute fashionista that everyone couldn’t help but like.  Overall, this movie was really about women self improvement and chosign the morally correct decision at the end of the day.  

The story was about Rebecca Bloomfield (Isla Fisher), a cash poor editor who is obsessed with shopping the top brand name labels.  She dreamt of working at her favourite magazine but ends up working at a investment and financial magazine.  Her articles on the easy to read financial advice based on her shopping expertise made it easy to explain different financial issues in ‘people’ terms.  She wrote under the name “The girl with the green scarf” to which her articles became an international hit.  Her boss, Luke Brandon (Hugh Dancy) fights for her in an ongoing battle to keep her away from criticism.  Her problems with credit allowed her to reflect on the problems and herself as the movie went on.  

Though the movie was decently good, it was, much like a lot of these types of comedies, completely predictable.  Her lows were foreseen, the embarassments were far fetched and the ‘losing everything’ and ‘gaining it all back again’ type movies annoy me.  Don’t get me wrong, it was totally to be expected.  I never imagined that this would have been different.  Hoped it would have been.

Isla Fisher (Definitely, Maybe) and Hugh Dancy (Jane Austin Book Club) made a compelling and wonderful cast together.  Go watch the movie.  It definitely a lighthearted film that will compell you to stop shopping!