TJ Online

Movie Review: “Avatar” (2009)

March 17, 2010April 10, 2010 TJ 3 Comments
This post has 4,978 views.

I finally saw Avatar. Actually, I saw Avatar about four weeks ago, but didn’t get around to writing about it until today. I actually wanted to see it in January, but I wanted to see it in IMAX 3D and the theaters were packed back then. As almost all of you probably know, Avatar is James Cameron’s latest mega-budget blockbuster that is now the highest grossing film of all time. This post is just a collection of my thoughts on the film, so it’s not really a movie review per se, but I’ll put it in my review category for organization’s sake.

2010 Winter Olympics Wrap-up

February 28, 2010May 29, 2010 TJ Leave a comment
This post has 3,043 views.

Canada!!!

The 2010 Vancouver Winter Games is finally coming to a close after two weeks of world-class competition. Despite the shaky start with the protests and the unfortunate death of the Georgian luger, plus the persistent weather problems (it was more like the Spring Olympics), it’s been a good Olympics games. Canada has done a good job as a host and also in the games. We didn’t exactly “own the podium” as the Americans and Germans have more medals in total, but Canada did win more gold medals than any other country this time. Canada’s 14 gold medals set the record for most gold medals won during a single Winter Olympics by any country. The total haul of 26 medals is also Canada’s best showing at any Olympics, summer or winter. Canada really came on strong during the last few days, capping it all off with a dramatic 3-2 overtime win over the USA in men’s hockey. Congratulations Canada!

Olympic Break and School Term Impressions

February 12, 2010April 12, 2013 TJ Leave a comment
This post has 2,981 views.

I turned this website into a blog a month and a half ago in order to encourage myself to write more, but that hasn’t worked out so well. Anyways, for next two weeks, I’ll be spending nearly all my time at home. This is because of the Winter Olympics, which prompted my university to extend our usual one week break to two weeks. The break is by no means vacation though, since I have three projects and a couple of assignments to work on. Still, not having to commute to school and go to class should free up some time for me to watch the Winter Olympics… on TV. Having lived in Canada for so long, of course I’m rooting for the Canadian team, and also the Chinese team as well since I’m Chinese. I certainly hope Canada’s “Own the Podium” program will produce great results, but if that doesn’t work out, many of us Canadians will probably be happy if Canada wins the men’s hockey gold. GO CANADA!

2009 Fall Term in Review

January 7, 2010April 12, 2013 TJ Leave a comment
This post has 2,855 views.

I finally received the marks to all of my courses in the past term, so it’s time for me to write another term review post. I used to write these posts back on my *old* personal blog which eventually transformed into an anime/manga blog. Since this site is now my personal blog, I’ll be writing these kind of posts here instead. As always, below is a list of courses I took, my mark for each course, and what I thought of each of them.

Review: Eureka Seven: Pocket Full of Rainbows

January 6, 2010September 21, 2015 TJ Leave a comment
This post has 725 views.

I don’t watch anime films very often, but once in a while something will catch my attention. This time it’s Eureka Seven: Pocket Full of Rainbows, which is of course the film adaptation to Bones’ much beloved anime series about sky-surfing mecha and teenage romance. I was looking forward to this movie given how enjoyable the Eureka Seven anime series was, but unfortunately Pocket Full of Rainbows turned out to be a disappointment.

Review: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

January 5, 2010September 20, 2015 TJ Leave a comment
This post has 553 views.

Since most ongoing anime series took a break, I thought this would be a good time to change things up a bit and write an anime movie review. This review is for The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, a film that has received glowing praise (and some even think it’s the best anime movie ever). Given that reputation, I had to see the film myself, and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time turned out to be a very enjoyable and charming movie.

Random WordPress Tidbits, New Artwork, and Happy New Year

December 31, 2009December 31, 2009 TJ Leave a comment
This post has 10,247 views.

What better way to end this year and decade but with a hodgepodge post consisting of three completely unrelated topics?

Umineko no Naku Koro ni – Final Thoughts

December 28, 2009September 24, 2015 TJ Leave a comment
This post has 627 views.

It’s the end of another anime season, and one of the series that concluded this season is Umineko no Naku Koro ni. It’s a good thing that I gave up on writing organized, paragraph-form reviews, since I have trouble organizing my thoughts for Umineko. I’m not really what to say about Umineko other than that it didn’t suck nor did it impress. Anyways, here is my random list of thoughts about the series.
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Nintendo Wii and Wii Sports – Two Month Impressions

December 27, 2009December 28, 2009 TJ 5 Comments
This post has 9,105 views.

Having not bought a video game console for more than seven years, my family finally caved in and bought a Nintendo Wii two months ago. Originally it was my mother who wanted the Wii because of the good things she heard about it, but as expected I ended up being the one who uses it the most. We only have the console and Wii Sports for now, and here are my impressions after playing for two months.

TJ Online Relaunched

December 24, 2009June 23, 2010 TJ 1 Comment
This post has 3,625 views.

I’m on winter vacation right now, and I don’t plan on going anywhere. Therefore, there’s no better things for me to do but to pay some attention to my oft neglected personal website. Over the last four or five days, I have been busy converting TJ Online from Xoops to WordPress, and the website you now see is the finished product of that effort. Xoops is a nice piece of software, but over the years I’ve discovered that it’s a bit overkill for a personal website. I chose to convert to WordPress because… everyone else is running WordPress. It is the most popular blogging platform out there for a reason, so it seems like a good choice. Converting my site into a blog also will help motivate me to write more… or at least I hope ;) . I’ve also chosen to convert this site because it gets very little visitors, so screwing around with this site won’t really affect my total traffic by much.

Since WordPress didn’t have an automatic import tool for Xoops and that I wanted to keep as much of my old data as possible, I manually moved every article, download, and gallery picture from Xoops to WordPress. By manual, I meant manually copying and pasting posts, uploading photos, and modifying the database via PHPMyAdmin. It’s boring and time consuming work, but I am used to doing this stuff. Compared to moving my data, installing WordPress and plug-ins was pretty easy. I really like the fact that WordPress has integrated a plug-in search into the admin panel. It makes finding and installing plug-ins so convenient. Compared to Xoops, WordPress is simpler. There are definitely some areas where Xoops is stronger, but thus far I have found that WordPress is meeting my needs for this website.

Anyways, this is more or less the completed website. I might add some small things here or there, but the look (modified from the understated but elegant “Piano Black” theme from mono-lab) is here to stay. Since the theme itself is primarily black and shades of gray, I will try to use bright backgrounds to liven up this place, and as a start I’ve employed a photo of some of the fuchsia in my family’s backyard. Anyways, hopefully all the changes will make this site more user friendly and attract more visitors.

Lastly, I hope everyone will have a happy holidays.

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