Baked Potatoes

Time for another food post! I love fries! Just adore them with pretty much anything, but sometimes I feel guilty because they're fried and they're not always the healthiest option. So a great alternative is having a baked potato and you can garnish it with almost anything.

 

Ingredients:

• Big potatoes
• Salt 
• Vegetable or olive oil or butter

Preparation:

Heat the oven to 17oC. Take the potatoes and wash them thoroughly under cold running water, use a brush if you have one. Make sure to wash them very well and cut off any dark spots, you're going to be eating the skin after all.  Then dry them well with a clean towel. Now take a fork or a sharp knife and make 4 holes on each side of the potato almost an inch in so the steam can escape while cooking. It's very important to do this since if you don't, the potatoes can explode. 

I'm sure you noticed we're not using foil but using foil will make the potatoes soft and technically speaking, it won't be baked but steamed since you're trapping the steam inside. 

You can choose whatever you want to 'spice up' your potatoes, whether it's oil or butter and then cover it up with salt. Yum! You can even use rosemary. Then place your potatoes in a tray and put it right in the middle of the oven and let them bake for about an hour. If you feel the potatoes aren't quite done then leave them for another 10-15 minutes. 

After they're out of the oven just use a fork or knife and make a dotted line along the potato and just squeeze and it'll pop right open, be careful, it'll be very hot. Then you can add sour cream or butter over the opening and they're ready to eat! 

On Pottermore

So I have been a Pottermore member since October 2012. When I first heard about this project I was beyond psyched! Finally, something for all us hardcore HP fans! The website's design is beautiful and full of vibrant colors. You get to unlock new material by J.K. Rowling herself throughout the books. 

As you can tell by this screencap, I got sorted into Hufflepuff. I was bummed at first but I came to love my house. (:

Pottermore lets you go through all the Harry Potter books and each chapter will contain one or up to three key moments in this chapter with amazing detailed artwork of moments in the book. You can interact with a few elements in each moment and you can even collect some items to help you throughout the story such as ingredients for potions, books or galleons for spending in Diagon Alley. You gain points for everything you collect but none if you're recollecting them. 

Like in the book when Harry first learns he's a wizard, you get to go to Diagon Alley and buy your school supplies and your wand. Once you're in Hogwarts, you get sorted into a house by answering 7 questions as truthfully as you can. Once you're in a house then that's that and you can't change it. These are the best experiences on Pottermore as you truly feel that J.K. Rowling placed the sorting hat on your head.

Your potions book.

You can brew potions and duel with other users and that's pretty much it. It's a lot fun at first but you get bored after a while as there's nothing else to do and not all the books are available to be explored. Even brewing potions can be frustrating as if you don't follow the instructions exactly, you have to start over and you'll need to buy more ingredients. Sometimes there's a lag and even if you do the whole potion correctly, the lag might make you start over. And once your potion is done, you get house points and that's pretty much it, you can't even use them. But a lot of people are pretty good at them. Not to mention most of the Diagon Alley shops are still locked. 

As members accomplish certain things on the site, they will gain points for their house and at the end of the year, of course, the house with the most points wins the house cup. 

Also, at the current moment (Only the first few chapters of Prisoner of Azkaban are available), most of the spells are locked and you can only perform a few. Same thing applies to potions, you can only brew 8 potions, including the polyjuice potion. 

To make this website more suitable for children, all members have usernames and it's not possible to upload your own photos or directly message other members. Because of that, you won't know who added you and if you have friends on Pottermore the only way to know who's who is if you talk off the website to tell each other your usernames'. 

I hope that sometime in the near future that more games will be available, maybe taking quizzes to determine your patronus charm or more fun games like the ones you played throughout the story (catching pixies or tossing gnomes out of a garden). Maybe having more moments in each chapter and having more interactive things to do in each moment. Also maybe challenging another member to a friendly game of wizard's chess. And being able to read the books you've purchased would be great too. 

The website is beautifully done and the hard work and effort put into it is very apparent. As you go more and more into the books, you can tell how the Pottermore team is trying make the experience more enjoyable. 

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Movie Review

First post of 2013! Hope you all have a great year this year! Now onto the review. After a much anticipated trailer, I finally got to see The Hobbit a few weeks ago! I was really excited as I entered the movie theater with my husband and a few of his friends (he wasn't too eager though :D). I was really looking forward to see what Peter Jackson managed to accomplish this time.  

This movie differs as it is shot amazingly with 48 frames per second, double the normal rate of 24 frames per second. The picture is vivid, crisp and full of high quality detail. Plus seeing it in IMAX 3D is simply mind blowing, however, the 3D aspect does not play a huge role in this movie.

Although many say that the 48 frame per second was not the best choice that Jackson went along with as it was a bit too fast to capture the real magical moments in the movie. And that it's kind of being on set and so you see everything behind the scenes. Since I'm a fan, I would have gone to see the film regardless of how it was shot. Most of us are not photography or film maniacs so we don't know the details of how the movie was shot and to be honest most of us don't care. To me, movies are all about enjoyment and not about the technology used to create them. Unless, of course, something was very obviously ruining the movie. 

The Hobbit novel is only around 300 pages long which makes you wonder how the writers of the movies will rewrite some parts of the story in order to be able to stretch it into a trilogy. However, I want to point out that I have not read the novel so my review is solely based on the enjoyment of this movie. 

As most Lord of the Rings fanatics know, The Hobbit is a prequel and these events take place shortly before the first LotR film. We see a young Bilbo Baggins, who is portrayed amazingly well by Martin Freeman, whom Frodo takes a lot after by the way. We also see a very green and peaceful Shire, before all the chaos that envelopes it.   

The big bad wolf in The Hobbit is Smaug, a ruthless dragon who thirsts for gold and guess who has a lot of it? The dwarves. The story follows how Bilbo is 'tricked' into tagging along with 13 dwarves on an amazing adventure as a thief to retrieve their homeland, Erebor, along with Gandalf the Grey (another great appearance by Ian McKellen). 

There are a lot of dangers on the road ranging from fearsome (not to mention really ugly) orcs to thick headed trolls and goblins, and a few surprises here and there as well. I was not disappointed that the orcs were animated as it would have been really difficult to design a costume as detailed as the animation, not to mention it would've been very hard to move around in. It looked pretty real to me. 

The scenery was beyond mind blowing, I cannot even begin to describe how stunning the locations were. And they all added so much more to the the story, it was truly dazzling.  

To put it quite frankly, I did not recognize the actor who played Thorin at all and throughout the movie my husband and I were trying to remember where we saw him before but with no avail (we had to search it as soon as we got home). Richard Armitage played the dwarf king and that's basically how good his performance was; we couldn't recognize him. He fitted the role beautifully. We also see some familiar faces from the LotR movies such as Kate Blanchet, Hugo Weaving and Christopher Lee. I don't think I even need to go into how well they all performed (even though it was only for one or two scenes). 

The soundtrack also added greatness to the story, the dwarf songs and the music all came together fantastically. The music simply gives you goosebumps. 

While the movie is pretty long I didn't feel it since I was enjoying it so much. I didn't feel as if it was dragging on, sure I enjoyed some moments more than others but in the end it put a smile on my face. I have heard that the movie is misleading from the book but as I have said before, it doesn't really irk me as long as the major plot has not changed. Besides, you can't compare this with the LotR trilogy, it's going to be different and we to accept that. You might think change isn't always good but a little of it won't do much harm, will it? Following the novels exactly feels boring and dull to me, I will feel like my imagination did it better but the differences add a little spice to the story and so there's a little element of surprise too. I give this movie an 8/10! It may not have lived up to our expectations but it's spectacular nonetheless. 

Muse The 2nd Law Album Review

Oh god, where do I even begin? I know the album has been out for a while now but I gave it a good listen a few weeks ago and I think I fell in love with Muse all over again. Let me point out that this album cannot be heard as it should be through your low quality laptop speakers or stereo, you have to really listen (I used my Beats headphones and it made all the difference). I have to say that when the trailer for The 2nd Law was released and I heard dubstep I thought: MUSE HAS GONE DUBSTEP TOO?! (But I was still ecstatic about the album nonetheless.) And I saw how the fans went rabid on the comment section on YouTube.

It's very clear that Muse can be quite versatile in they way they write and present their music; it can be heard clearly on this album. While a few music critics believe that Muse have not done their absolute best on this album, I beg to differ.  Also, the album was amazingly produced. Influences like Led Zeppelin, Queen and David Bowie are clearly heard throughout the album, something that many other artists rarely show on their records.

Muse dived into the world of dubstep in this album, not only did they incorporate the genre into their music but they included elements of it in some of their songs, you can clearly hear the bass guitar in songs such as Panic Station, mixed with a little bit of funk as well.

In a song like Supermacy, you kind of get a James Bond vibe with the incorporated orchestra instruments. At first, you hear a guitar riff and you think ah Muse is playing guitar, yay but then this orchestra kicks in and you're like oh..wait..this is...Muse?! 

Then you have a track like Liquid State, sung and written by Muse's own bassist  Wolstenholme. His voice is deep and you get a feel of the old Muse. The only complaint I have about this song is that it abruptly comes to an end after 3 staggering minutes. 

The Second Law: Unsustainable is when the magic happens. Even though I'm not a dubstep enthusiast (makes my ears bleed actually) I'm just captivated by this track. The reason I highly applaud this is because everything you hear in this song is generated by the band and not by a computer program (sorry Skrillex). Just add some electric guitars, an orchestra and a choir and you have yourself a kick-ass Muse track! 

I don't think I even need to say anything about Survival, the track for the Olympics. Bellamy did an exceptional job with the lyrics and you feel like you're hearing the words going through an athlete's mind. 

Follow Me is a more mellow sounding song, Bellamy is singing to his newborn son. The song is very sweet and you feel like as if Bellamy is directly singing to his newborn. 

I want to leave you to listen to the rest of the album and so I won't go into the rest of the tracks, listen to it yourself and be the judge. This album is just a masterpiece and listening to it once is not enough to appreciate every little detail throughout the album. You can tell from this album that Muse has greatly developed as a band. Bellamy can write music for anything and it will still be amazing. This album may not sound like typical Muse but they're trying something new but like I mentioned before, the album is wonderfully produced and composed. Another astounding album by Muse. 

Viral Videos: PonPonPon

Alright, I just discovered this Japanese MV and holy crap! I haven't seen something this random since...ever! I know it's been out for a long time..how on earth did I miss this?!

Take a look at this. 

So the artist is 19 year old Takemura Kiriko who is known by her stage name Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. She started out as fashion blogger and modeled for many famous fashion magazines in Japan.  In 2011, PonPonPon was her first promo single and as you can see, it became a viral video. 

There are even tons of covers by Vocaloid characters like Miku and Len and many other fictional characters.

This is my favorite cover! :3 This version is by Dirk Strider and yes he is a fictional non existent character, sounds good yes? :D Yay for guilty pleasures!

I know that the song sounds pretty annoying but I don't know, I just keep listening to it over and over, it's so addictive! Argh, I don't know why I'm liking this so much! xD 

The Best Android Photo Apps

So there are tons of articles out there claiming that these are the best 15 or 20 Android photo applications. But when I went through them, most of the applications just are not what I'm searching for and minimal features. So I decided to write about my own favorite photo apps and what features are in each one.

So these are the photo apps that I use. And yes, that is my husband and I on our wedding day. :)

I guess Instagram doesn't need much of an introduction since it's one the mostly used applications right now by both Android and iOS users. But if you just got a new iPhone or Samsung phone and were wondering about this app I'm going to explain it anyway.

Instagram basically edits already existing photos that you have on your phone or you can take a photo within the application itself and then you edit it. You can can choose from a range of filters to spice up your pictures a little and you can either choose to include that filter's border or not. 

Even though Instagram is the most popular application right now, I don't always use it for editing as features are very limited (only filters and borders) and you can't even mix and match the filters and borders; each filter has its border and that's that. So I use Instagram mainly for sharing my photos. You can't adjust contrast or colors or sharpen or blur and among a lot of other things. But the filters are actually pretty nice. 

Next application which I love is Photo Wonder! I almost always use this app since it has many features and you can download extra material as well.

As you can see, you can already pick a picture you have in your own gallery then edit it or create a collage or you can use the camera within the app but you also choose the filter at the same time so you already know what the photo will look like before even snapping the photo! Very handy, right? :D 

Not to mention there  are tons of stuff you can do to edit your photos since you have a lot of options. The filters are very nice and lots of stickers and borders to choose from!

 

There's also a beautifying option where you can get smooth looking skin and you even tap those pesky zits away.  The decorations are also very cute and there's quite a lot of them. 

 

Photogrid basically allows you to make collage photos. You can actually choose one photo as well and just add a funky looking frame.

This app is also one of my favorites! Camera 360 is full of filters but that's pretty much it, you only get to choose filters; this app doesn't have any stickers or borders but the filters are very nice. 

 

Like PhotoWonder, Camera 360 lets you take photos within the application and also lets you use the filter camera. This feature has been spreading lately and most photography applications now have it. 

Now the only problem with this application is that you can only choose from its own gallery or your camera gallery and that's it. But the filters are really nice and there's quite a bunch to choose from.  

There's even a magic skin filter that will make your skin really smooth and there are options to choose from. You can have a glossy finish to your skin or maybe you want it to be black and white. :D However, you can't change the opacity. 

I don't even use Frame Magic so I don't why it's even there haha! I'll probably delete it later but if you want to try it out anyway, go ahead. This application lets you add borders (as I'm sure you can tell from its name xD) and it has some filters which I didn't like at all so that's probably why I'm going to delete it. Not to mention it forces you to crop your photos like Instagram.

Next app is Cymera I have to say that the name is very clever even though I don't see how it's relevant to the application lol. Anyway, so I just installed Cymera on my phone a few days ago and I'm still trying it out but it seems to be like a good app.

 Cymera is actually very similar to PhotoWonder as it lets you take photos withing the application, has a beautifying option,  and lets you add filters, decorations and borders.

There's a wide range of filters and they're quite lovely.

I think it's very obvious what Pic Collage does haha! You must know though, that this application is not like Photo Shake or Photo Grid. This application makes actual collages and you even email them to a friend or that special someone. ;)

As you can see, using the application could not be easier. 

So I made a little collage of me and my husband and I think it looks pretty good. :D

 It's very easy to use and you can also edit the background of your collage! Pretty cool huh? 

Aviary is another good photo application around. Aviary gets you a little a slideshow to choose a photo for you to edit. The slideshow shows all of the pictures you have on your phone and it has them in chronological order from newest to oldest. And to make matters simpler and easier for you, you can just pick a picture from your phone's regular gallery. 

 

There are a few free filters and stickers and you can choose to buy more and these are not the only features, you can adjust the brightness, contrast, and you can even turn your picture into a meme and draw on your picture. :D Not only that but you can add text as well as hide blemishes. So you have a lot features in this app.

Photoshake is pretty much the same as PhotoGrid but I prefer the latter.

I saved the best application for last and that's Pixlr Express!  This is like a newer more efficient version of Pixlr-o-matic. This is my ultimate favorite app for editing my photos! It has dozens of filters, borders and overlays for you to choose from. 

 

You have some adjustment options and you can actually change the opacity of many  of them and the radius, just as you would do in Photoshop. 

 

The filters are categorized as you can see and you can mark the ones you like as your favorite instead of going through all the filters each time to look for the ones you frequently used.  Very practical. :D The only downside is that this application doesn't have a 'magic skin' or beautifying option for your portrait photos so you can just use one of the other applications.

And that's it!

These are my personal favorite photo editing applications for Android. I think that alomost all of these applications are available for iOS (I know Instagram is). Hope this article was somewhat helpful and informative for you. :)