Lesser Known North American Cryptids: A Survey

The Rhode Island Mean-Bird: Making its home in Providence, the RIM-B is said to be anywhere from 1 to 1 and 1/2 feet in wingspan. Some witnesses have claimed that they have measured its wingspan to over 2 feet, but these claims seem wildly outlandish to those familiar with the RIM-B. What is not disputed, however, is how mean it is (very mean).
Day Bat: On that most desolate of American Peninsulas, the Floridian Day-Bat is known to jolt awake traveling families with its eerie midmorning cry, which bares a stunning resemblance to the speaking voice of actor David Duchnovy. While some cryptozoologists now suspect that the Day Bat is simply a regular bat that stays awake for a few extra hours, there exists no substantial body of proof to support this theory.
Ol' Cliff (formerly known as Clifton Clifford): In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, locals know not to go swimming in the Clifton Lagoon, for fear of Ol' Cliff. Early settlers reported a creature with a body of a sea lion and a head of a horse, which would swim idly up the the lakeshore to shoot the breeze with whoever was nearby. They originally had hoped this creature, which they named Clifton Clifford, would bring them good fortune. But frontier people were stupid; horse-headed monsters are never good news. During the early days of that first stifling Ohio summer, several children went missing a night. At first, families were reticent to blame their new, horsey friend- he seemed so kind, and besides, in olden days kids were nothing more than a burden at the best of times. However, when the mayor's beloved daughter, Agnes (again, olden times were awful), went missing one humid August afternoon, a county-wide moratorium on swimming was put into place, which holds to this day. FUN FACT: Ol' Cliff's head is actually that of a mule!
North American Giant Bigfoot: Probably just a really big bigfoot. No big deal.

butter

In it's prime, seasons 2,3,4, N.B.C.'s the Office was a great show.  It was super witty, had a really good story line, and had great characters that you could really connect with.  This is not the case anymore.

The show started to go down hill in its fifth season.  It kind of ran out of original plots and it just became weird.  The characters started to change from their original, hillarious forms, and started to just become plain unfunny.  This could be said for most main charachters, except for the protagonist, Micheal Scott.  Micheal always maintained a constant leval of funny.

After a terrible season 5 and 6, Steve Carrell, who portrays scott, announced he was leaving the show at the end of the 7th season. This led to the best season since the 4th which climaxed at a great episode, Micheal's leaving of the office. 

This would have been a great place to close down the series.  Leave with its dignity.  But the writers decided to continue it. 

The 8th season just had its season finale.  The season proved to be the show's worst effort by far, almost unwatchable.  After this embarrasment you think the show's writers would decide to shut it down, right?

Wrong, they are bringing back for a 9th season, for some unfathomable reason.  Along with this new season, they are bringing in all new writers and a lot of new cast members(because the smart ones knew they had to get the hell out of that mess.)

The Office is such a good example of how shows should quit when they are ahead, before they ruin everything good they had once done. 

The Importance of Being Shiho: A Play in One Paragraph

Dramatis Personae:

Count Luke of Grantham: A young heir to the Grantham Estate, Luke (23 years old) is widely thought to be among the most eligible bachelors in England.

Lady Martina of Grantham: Count Luke's Mother, a dowager

Lady Shiho: A visiting diplomat, considered a highly sought after prospect now that she has reached marriageable age.

Setting: The Grantham Estate, in Northern England. Although grand is scale, it has recently fallen on hard economic times. Its current heir, the young and intelligent Count Luke, has recently returned from a year-long trip to America, where he sought a fiance. Upon his return, he finds that his mother, the dowager Countess Martina of Grantham, has invited a prospect for marriage.

Luke: enters stage right, in his finest evening wear. Oh, hey.

Shiho: LUUUUUKE IS CUUUUTE.

End

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, is the story of a future dystopia on the land in which the United States used to be, and the people who have to deal with these troubles.  The main character, Katniss Everdeen, is a 16 year old from the 12th district out of 12, which is also the poorest district.  Katniss, the main care-taker of her family after her father's death, seems at first to be very un-empathetic to her family and friends.  When the 12th district holds their annual selection for the capitol city's "hunger games", an event where a boy and girl from each of the 12 districts, are forced to fight to the death to prevent rebellion to the capitol city, Katniss and a boy named Peeta Mellark are chosen. The two go to the capitol city, the laughing stock of all the districts, to get trained by the sole living winner of the games from the 12th district, Haymitch, an old, beaten down drunk.  Haymitch sees they have some natural talent from years from having to hunt in the woods for food to survive in their starving district.  The two get trained and enter the games.  The battle and outcome are exciting and surprising.

The most interesting theme I pulled from The Hunger Games was the realization of the importance of family by the main character, Katniss Everdeen. This literary element of characterization was very compelling.  Katniss started off the book annoyed at her family for having to do all the physical labor to keep them alive.  She did not take into consideration what her family had done for her.  Her mother always made the family look presentable so they were never taken away by the capitol city to an orphanage, and her sister was always upbeat and positive that kept the daunting task of gathering food possible, subconsciously know she was doing what her deceased father always did for people she loved.  By the end of the book, Katniss really came to see how she under appreciated her family and how they were the most important thing to her.  This character development was by far the most compelling theme of the book.

What do they call The Hunger Games in France? http://i.imgur.com/CGzOW.jpg.  Okay now that I got that out of the way I can get to the review.  Well... that is going to be a prominent theme of this review portion.  Battle Royale is a 1999 novel by Koushun Takami.  It is about a world in which Japan won WWII, and had formed a futuristic dystopia.  In this dystopia, a group of high school students, randomly selected by the government every year, are forced to fight to the death to prevent rebellion against the government (sound familiar?).  Battle Royale does this story infinitely better than The Hunger Games.  This is because it is much longer, so it gets into more detail, and the kids have known each other for years so it shows the way some are apprehensive and some turn psychotic.  The Hunger Games is just a more poorly retold version of Battle Royale.  However, the thing I did enjoy more about The Hunger Games was it had a very relatable main character.  I would not recommend The Hunger Games to anyone, unless for some reason they wanted to read a worse version of Battle Royale, or like to read books before seeing the movie (my reason for reading it).  My overall opinion: It was a good book, but the story has been done before in a much better way.

yo yo yo, check what i found out.

 

"A Good and Thorough List of Lists: An Excerpt from the 1788 Edition of the New American Almanac of Facts Continental"

1. A list of dogs

2. A different list of dogs

3. A list of animals first thought to be dogs, but quickly found to be small bears

4. A list of good names for dogs starting with A. 

5-29. Several Lists of good dog names starting with letters B-Z, exempting H

30. A rather brief list of bad names for dogs (All letters). 

31. A list of all available taxons of the common eel, containing three separate types of eel. 

32. A list of letters not commonly used, including those of the Spaniards (ñ, é, î, œ etc.)  

33. A list of red fruits

34. A list of non-red fruits

35. A list of blue fruits (Note, Some overlap between lists 34. and 35.)

36. A list of things to say to people upon first meeting them ("Hello." Also, "Hey")

37. A list of all the ways to hurt a person.

38. A list of all the ways to hide. 

39. A list of possible ghost sightings (excerpt: "And, lo, a great and terrible spectre of dimensions unearthly did indeed hang so moribund above my bed for nigh on an hour. And face to face with its eldritch countenance I did realize that my life was unfortunately without lists, and was thus without lists of lists.")

40. A list of evenings in which ghosts were not sighted. 

41. A list of newts. 

42. A list of cats. 

43. A list of kittens (Easily the superior list, in this editor's opinion)

44. A list of feelings people have when they are cold (Furious, cold)

45. A list of different ways to cry, including several instructive diagrams. 

46. A list of theoretical birds (Cat-Bird, Dog-Bird, Bird-Bird (The SuperBird))

47. A list of cane-based sports (Hit Canes, etc.)

48. A list of undiscovered islands that the author intends to discover

49. A list of things the author has in his pockets (buttons, string, air)

50. A list of rocks

51. A list of grasses, shrubs and fish

52. A list that is actually just one item, and that item is the word PROBLEMS in bold faced type

53. A list of shirts, including pants.

54. Scientific Inquiry has proven that no further lists are possible at this time.