Full Tilt: Blog #6: Ride #5: The Kamikaze v2

Hmmm...ummm...this ride is cool but after the last one I don't have any really high praise for it. I guess I prefer it to the sixth ride, but still, it's a letdown compared to the fourth ride. The thing that comes between the fifth and sixth rides makes up for that though. That part is AWESOME. Too bad I'll never talk about it. The fifth ride starts off bad with the lap bar in Blake's seat not going down. Then the ride begins it's 10 minute ascent to the very top, and then when the ride did it's rediculously huge descent down, the ride, of course, shifted shapes once again. The individual cars turned into a Japanese Zero plane. The relation to Blake this time is that Blake has a model of a Japanese Zero plane in his room. Blake also was in the plane that led the squadron of the other riders on the Kamikaze. The fact that he was in charge also delved into his deeper fear: the fear of failing and taking everyone down with him. To Blake, it actually feels like he has control on the ride, but then Cassandra appears again and begins on a 1 on 1 fight between her and Blake. She eventually shot him down, but as he was flying towards the ocean, he was reminded of what Cassandra said to him before: "There's a way out of every ride." Frantically searching seconds before the crash, he found a button with the ride symbol on it on the instrument panel of his plane. He immediatly hit it, which ejected his seat up into the air, and out of the ride. Nothing really too interesting to discuss on this ride. I guess one could draw a conncection between the Japaneses Zero planes, which were suicidal bombing planes made to take out enemies. To some, maybe the huge descent on a roller coaster feels like a suicide attack. Going staight down, rediculously hard to see due to velocity, and fear for some. I guess that could be similar to what suicidal pilots would feel like before they crash into an enemy ship. Done.

Full Tilt: Blog #5: Ride #4: Mirror House Maze

Ahh...the Mirror Maze. This is by far my most favorite ride in this book. The concept for this ride is really awesome, plus the interaction between Blake and Maggie is really cool in this ride as well. Just gonna start with the very weird part of the ride: there are commando clowns. Yeah...commando clowns in the ride. They are clowns in commando outfits with bazookas. Of ocurse, since the rides in here are so dangerous, the shells don't just hit the glass and explode, or even better, break the glass. No, they bounce off the galss mirrors and keep bouncing until they hit someone in the maze and then the unfortuanate person dies. Anyways, now for the summary of the ride. Blake quickly notices how something is odd in the ride. Some mirrors are like fun houses, where they just make you look strange, but others were much more...sinister, I guess. When Blake looked in some mirrors he felt hopeless, weak, and doomed to fail. The mirrors acutally could change the way you felt about yourself. Also, some others make you look like extremely disfigured monsters. So, after wandering around for a while Blake saw some disfigured monster walking around in the maze, and long story short, realized it's Maggie. Then, shortly after, he realized the coolest and most devious part of the maze. None of the mirrors are solid and there are no walls holding them in. Of course, this doesn't make it easy to get out. As he and Maggie walked through mirrors, they became even more disfigured to the point where it's hard to move, or feel so hopeless they want to give up. In the end, Blake and Maggie get separated at the very end of the ride. Blake escapes but Maggie gets stuck in there, sees a mirror that made her completly lose all confidence, and soon she was gone. So, this ride is awesome. The concept of going through mirrors that change the way you actually think about yourself is awesome. Amplification of one's own personal weaknesses shows how devious this park, and Cassandra, can be. Dang, I think this is the longest one I've ever written. Why do these seem to keep getting longer and longer... Done.

Full Tilt: Blog #4: Ride #3: Swinging Boat

So...ride #3...exciting isn't it? At this point, it has become apparent that the rides are slowly getting more dangerous, the mysteries of the park are being revealed, and new things about Cassandra are being learned. Unfortunately, I won't be discussing any of those ideas in this blog post. The third ride that Blake goes on is a swinging boat. Unlike the other rides, Blake actually doesn't start on the ride. As he enters the area of the ride, the boat becomes a giant ship in the middle of an ocean. Instead of beginning on the ship, he starts in the water surrounding it. When he gets on the ship, the captain tells him how they're going after the great blue whale. It is at this point that it is apparent this ride is made from the book: Moby Dick. He sees the whale and the captain describes her by saying, "See how she opens her mouth to filter life from the sea! I'd hate to be a krill caught in her baleen." This line is very reminiscent of the one said before by Blake, which was, "You see, my Mom is sort of like a blue whale...Mom filters losers through her baleen as if they were kirll." It is at this point that Blake realizes that the whale in the ride is his mom, and the captain is Carl, her current boyfriend. This makes is apparent that Cassandra not only knows about Blake, but she can read and use his actual thoughts and things he has said. This makes her almost invincible, and gives her a huge advantage over Blake. Anyways, Captain Carl of course, like Moby Dick, fails to defeat the blue whale, but Blake escapes. So, is there an established meaning behind Carl "losing" against Blake's mom? Most likely. To Blake, and most likely to Quinn as well, Carl has no chance with Blake's mom due to her going through a string of relationships that don't seem to have much meaning. Oh my god I wrote a lot. Done.

Full Tilt: Blog #3: Ride #2: Bumper Cars

To start off for this, an update. Apparently I don't need to summarize what happens between rides, so that won't be in these as I said in the last one. But, I still will summarize the ride, otherwise it would all just sound really weird. So, the second ride in Full Tilt is the Bumper Cars. Like the first ride, and like all of the other rides in this book, this ride transforms. As Blake, Russ, and Maggie get on, the bumper cars turn into Volvos, and the enviornment turns into a gangster war in Chicago. The riders in here (with the exceptions of Blake, Russ, and Maggie) all get way into the ride. Their previous anger shoots out and all they can think of is to kill the others, and destroy the opponenets. For example, some 10-year old girl rams into Blake and flies off the road onto a bench. Even though her head is bleeding, and he car is crashed she still is obsessed with anger. She says to Blake, "I'll get you, you stinking lousy...oh, man, you're screwed! I swear I'll get you!" She said all this in pure rage, her mind is lost. For conclusion to the ride, Blake escapes and is separated from Russ and Maggie. Oh, and of course, Cassandra attacks again. Anyways, I guess I could discuss the idea of the rides centering around Blake. This ride relates to Blake because he drives a Volvo. Also, he has many vintage models of cars in his room, and those cars are the cars that are driven by the other riders. Why this ride takes place in Chicago, I don't know. I don't believe he has any relation to Chicago, but many it's something not as important, like he watched a movie about it, or read about old wars in Chicago. Either way, it's not mentioned in the book. Woah...I went way over the amount of words needed this time. 314 words. Not counting this sentence, the previous one, or the one before the previous one. Done.

Full Tilt: Blog #2: Ride #1: The Carousel

Now that the intro section of this book is out of the way, I can move on to what I've been planning to do with these blogs. As I mentioned in the outside reading reflection, this book contains 7 rides, all of which have a deep meaning with the main character, Blake. These rides are very deep and I will analyze these rides in each bog, one at a time. Maybe provide a little back story between rides, if it's necessary, although (typically, one HUGE exception) not much happens between rides. The first ride that the Blake goes on is The Carousel. The Carousel is very important because it is the first real ride that Blake goes on in the park. Looking at it, it looks like a normal carousel, nothing special. Blake notices one thing about it though, and that is that all of the animals are mascots for the colleges he's considering going to, since he's leaving in a month or so. As soon as the ride starts though, it is very apparent it isn't normal. The ground beneath Blake, Russ, and Maggie (his friends) disappear, and rocks and a grassy plain appear. Soon, everyone on the ride was riding an actual animal, and those who flew off or were knocked off...to put it simply, or as simply as possible: die or "become a part of the park" (ex: they become the rocks in the ride, forever). Also, the being of Cassandra will basically attack Blake on every ride, and she tries in this one. I'll get more into that later. I guess in addition to talking about the rides I can talk about Cassandra. Anyways, now time to analyze. Think of the thoughts going through their heads as the ride transformed: it's amazing that they didn't freak out and die. Also, in terms of Blake noticing the mascots were all from colleges how knows, do his friends notice? What could they do even if they did? Why/Why would/wouldn't he tell them? These are all good questions and I'll simplify the answers cause I'm probably already done. No, not much, because he wants to, because he's afraid they'll react badly. Done.

A Sad and Tearful Goodbye To Chosen Articles About Videogames....and Blog #1: The Kamikaze

*cry, cry, cry, whimper, whimper, whimper* No more chosen posts...no more video game topics...no more...uh...PS3 related-stuff. It's sad really. At least the book to read can be chosen, unlike past years. I don't want to read The Complete Works of Shakspere: Volume XXXXXXXXXXVVVVVVI. The book I'm reading is Full Tilt, by Neal Shusterman. Some other famous books by him include Downsiders and Speeding Bullet. Anyways, this is Blog #1 and the topic in this book I'll be discussing for this is the ride that Blake, Quinn, Maggie, and Russ (the main characters) go on: The Kamikaze. To be honest, I still don't know what I'll be talking about at this point, but whatever, I'll wing it (that expression makes no sense). Okay, so The Kamikaze is a rollercoaster that the main characters go on very close to the beginning of the book. It is a rollercoaster with a thematic show: the track appears to dissapear as though you will...well...DIE, but it's not real. Of course, the main character Blake knew nothing about this shows, and was terrified when he saw the track fall. He actually thought he was going to die. This raises the question: What if he responded differently? Differently than just basically praying to god that is. What if he actually tried to jump off the rollercoaster during the ride, or somehow messed up something by trying to get out, and created some deadly chain reaction? By deadly chain reaction, I mean think like Final Destination 3...then again, I really doubt you've seen that Ms. Jarrett. Anyways, if he had responded differently, and somehow was injured or died, what would then happen? Could he sue them for not knowing what would happen, or is it all his own ignorance and fear? We will probably never know...oh look I'm at 301 words. Well, I'm done.

Outside Reading Reflection

The book I chose for outside reading is Full Tilt, by Neal Shusterman. I picked this book to read for many reasons. First of all, I really like the cover...wow that sounds dumb. But it’s true. The cover looks cool. Also, this book overall sounds really good. Going by the description on the back: “In order to escape, Blake must survive seven deadly rides by dawn, each of which represents a deep personal fear…” That overall sounds really awesome. To me, and I don’t know why, I like the sound of the structure of this book. I like things where there is like a structure, a list of levels (kind of like a video game). One final reason that this book interests me is that it sounds like a thrilling book. Not scary, but thrilling. For some reason, no books or movies seem to scare me. Anyways, due to these reasons, I chose the book Full Tilt, by Neal Shusterman to read for outside reading this quarter.