Random Stuff

Hello dear readers! I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas! This year I got a digital book reader! Right now I’m reading The adventures of Huckleberry fin on it! It is a strange book , (No offense to those who love it!)I also got a very nice scarf and hat from my nanny (Grandma) she nit them herself! Well leave a comment on what you got for Christmas!

Merry Christmas and a Very Happy New Year!

Ps-I just put up a new widget/side bar with a song that I enjoy!

Layne

Hello everybody! This week I have another challenge post, and it is about Creative Commons! Do you know what this is? Well a creative commons licence lets people know what conditoins you want followed if some wants to borrow your work. This includes attributing the picture to you if you took that picture. Flickr has many photos with Creative commons licences. The same with photo bucket, I think. I have put a CC licence on my blog letting you know that if you want to borrow my work you need to attrubute  the work back to me, you can’t use my work to make money but you are allowed to remix my work as long as you share it under the same conditions as my CC licence. This means you can’t make some thing and keep it for yourself!

If you still aren’t sure what this means, take the photo in this post for example. If I wanted to use it I’d have to find out if I have permission. The way you would go about doing this is somewhere near the bottom of a flickr photo page. There  is a little badge there that has little circles with the symbols CC. When you click on this it will take you to this page. Once there you will see the conditions that you need to follow if you intend on using it. Also one last very important tip for flickr - click search and then the  Advanced search. Then you can  search for just creative commons pictures! 

 Just remember if it says don’t change it then you should not do that.

CC flickr image- Holly cow! sign in lake Taupo by jcolman under the following conditions: Attribution- Non comercial- No Derivative works.

Thanks jcolman!

Hello every one! My teacher has asked me to tell you about the tools we have used in class and I hope you will read on and find out!  I have used many diffrent 21st century tools from Google to Edublogs and most in between! So just to make it easier to keep track of them all, I have used a bullet point list!

• Google - a search engine
• Vimeo  - Basically the same as youtube but it is not blocked by most schools
• Glogster - is a site that helps teachers in all sorts of ways. It makes learning easier for children of all ages. It helps make posters that you can add videos and animations to. 
• Wordle - this is what I used to make the Remembrance Day poem. I uses the tag cloud idea so the more you type a word into Wordle the bigger it will get on your poster!
• skype - I’ve only used this with my class to talk to another class in New Zealand but I really enjoyed it! Skype is basically a video chat program. webspiration - is a tool that helps you map out you thoughts in a web. 
• Moodle - Is a site thats manages you courses for your students to learn from.  
• Animoto- is a site that will most likely end slide shows for ever! It makes beautiful slide shows with words that go with the pictures.
• Audacity- lets you record your voice and sounds.
• Windows movie maker- lets you import videos or pictures on to it then it makes a movie out of them. It is what I used for my “It’s safe to dance” post.
• Flickr- Is an image sharing site. It is were I get all my blog post pictures.
• Vokaroo- let’s you record your voice the send it in an email. It is what I used for the “moari mihi” post.
• Edublogs - Well this is the site that powers my blog Random stuff. It lets teachers make and manage student blogs!

I think I can see myself using edublogs, flickr, google, skype, animoto and most of the other tools on there. To get my high school teachers to notice this I will show them either this post or the sites of these tools. I really hope they will let me use them in their class and then show them to other teachers so more teachers are aware of them.

CC Flickr image-Zombie Apocafest 2008 – Justin’s quarantine campby Dunechaser under the following conditions: Attribution-noncomercial-share alike

Thanks Dunechaser.

Theses are poems that I made in class. I would love if you read them and told me what you think. Also they are in the memory of my nanna. She died last summer at the ripe old age of 98. The last time I saw her I was 5 yrs old so her death hit me pretty hard but I decided that  she is in a better place now. One of my favorite memories about her was whenever she saw me she would say “ Is your name Layne ?” She’d also include my middle name and last name, but sorry it’s against the rules to say my last name here.

I hope you enjoy these poems.

The Silence

Death is like a shadow

Creeping like a theif

Behind you.

It steals your life.

Leaves you lying on the ground,

You’re so still.

In the darkness

Death takes you away,

From your loved ones.

You don’t want them to be sad

But they are

Death is like a shadow

The Silence

Death is like a shadow

Creeping behind you like a mugger

It takes your life,

Leaves you lying on the ground

Like so many others all

All over the world.

In the darkness

You’re so still

Death takes you

Away

From your loved ones

You can hear them crying

For you,

You don’t want them

To cry

But they don’t know that.

Death is like a shadow…

CC Flickr image : Fire Yin-Yang Painting by Denise A. Wells by Denis A. Wells under the following conditions: Attribution, Noncommercial and No Derivative works

Thank you Denis.

Do you know how to survive a zombie attack? Do you dare read on? I read this book called Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. It is an interesting book and it is really informative!

If you find out about a Zombie breakout you should:

• Go find as many things that can be filled with water and fill them with water.
• Get a lot of food that won’t go bad (e.g. canned goods)
• Board up the windows with everything  you can (the kitchen table, couches, chairs, ping pong table, even the T.V.). Anything  that will block your windows and doors
• Take the food and water upstairs
• Find weapons (guns, axes, shovels, lighters with hair spray – warning don’t try it please, swords)
• Take the weapons upstairs to the rooms with the food in them (not a very important thing but you might want to sleep with the food)
• Destroy the stairs. This will make  your life a whole lot easier because Zombies can’t climb at all.
• Put blankets on the windows. The moans of the zombies can drive you crazy.

The above is something to do temporarily. It should never be thought of as a permanent solution because you will eventually run out of food and water. If you think that going to a church will save you then you should guess again because all of those people praying will most likely attract zombies because of all the noise. If you were a zombie where would you go? The quiet house? Or the big loud church or mall? That’s right, the noisy mall and or church. Here is a list of places that you would want to avoid for your hiding place:

• The church
• The mall
• Any store with a big front window
• A tree fort unless you got rid of the steps
• The basement (I don’t care what the movies say. If you have ever watched the military channel then you will know that you want the highest ground, even with zombies)
• A car because you will eventually run out of gas.
• The street
• And for the most obvious one of all … the middle of the zombie horde

I have made many plans for the very very odd chance that a zombie horde could happen and that’s made me think, “Am I mentally O.K?” I think I’ve answered that question. Yes I am. I’m just a little paranoid that’s all! I would put all the things that a child would need to survive in the wild like some food and water and maybe some blankets. Oh yeah, and a tent as well. That would be so awesome! Except the zombie part – that would kind of suck  a lot.

Do you think you know where to go if a zombie horde attacks your house? Well I do. I would go to my local military base after I ran out of food! If that was over run with zombies then I would go shopping (stealing food and going back to my house! Of course I would be driving a totally awesome car with a turret on top with a side turret as well for my passenger (if you have one same goes for the turret!). It would also have enough gas for a journey across Vancouver Island. After that, I would start to try and find a safer place like a mountain or cottage.

Do you think you could survive a zombie attack? If you do then please tell me what you would do to survive!

CC flickr image:Zombie Apocafest 2009-Tommy Williamson’s combine by Dunechaser

The Maori from Newzeland have a rich culture and very nice language. We are skyping  a class from there. This is me saying a mihi - a traditional Maori greeting! By the way there will be another post about the Maori culture soon so watch out for it!

image: Tane Maori God of the forest by Traumador released under a CC Attribution – non-commercial- no derivatives works

The entrepreneur fair is a very fun event that this year I get to participate! I have wanted to participate in this fair for so long and now I can! So I am guessing that you are wondering what the Entrepreneur Fair is? Well it is a fair that lets young boys and girls sell thing of their own design! It also teaches the kids good business skills! I for one am selling pet rocks like so many other people! In order to know what the people want I want to ask you what you would buy on your pet rock! So I have made a survey for just that purpose! Just look below!

Last Sunday I got a new DS game called Pokemon: Soul Silver! Now everyone who is a self-respecting Pokemon fan would have been waiting in anticipation for March 14th (Sunday). Me being the game nerd I am bought it the very day it came out! Lucky for me I had just come back from Edmonton from visiting my dad, Step-mom Jen and my Grandma and Grandpa! There I got $50  for my report card which sadly I did not because a program on my teacher’s computer failed and it took a while to get the data back. 

I was totally stoked for this new game and the day I got back (Saturday) I tried to pre-order a copy which usually you are allowed to do at Wall-mart but I tried to get it at Superstore and I found out that you can’t pre-order copies there. So I came back the very next day to get that game! I must tell you that the graphics are amazing. The Pokewalker is so cool because you can catch Pokemon on it as well as level it up! In the first part you have to go to Mr.Pokemon and get something for Prof. Elm but when you get back something horrible has happened to one of the starter Pokemon! Some of the Pokemon that you can get in the Pokewalker are :

In the Refreshing Fields you can get:

1. Doduo (common) 2000+steps to find [put a space before the bracket and after it on each line]
2. Kangaskhan (rare) 3000+steps to find
3. Nidoran (common) 500+steps to find
4. Nidoran (girl) (common) 500+steps to find
5. Pigey (common) 0+steps to find
6. Sentret (common) 0++steps to find

In Noisy Forest:

1. Bellsprout (common) 3000+steps to find
2. Wobbuffet (rare) 4000+steps to find
3. Paras (common) 700+steps to find
4. Venonat (common) 700+steps to find
5. Spearow (common) 0+steps to find
6. Oddish (common) 0+steps to find

In Rugged Road:

1. Onix (common) 4000+steps to find
2. Magby (rare) 5000+steps to find
3. Machop (common) 1000+steps to find
4. Ponyta (common) 1000+steps to find
5. Geodude (common) 0+steps to find
6. Hoothoot (common) 0+steps to find

In Beautiful Beach:

1. Psychduck (common) 4000+steps to find
2. Staryu (common) 5000+steps to find
3. Poliwag (common) 1500+steps to find
4. Slowpoke (common) 1500+steps to find
5. Sunkern (common) 0+steps to find
6. wooper (common) 0+steps to find

In Subrban Area:

1. Magnemite (common) 4000+steps to find
2. Elekid (rare) 5000+steps to find
3. Magnemite (common) (Lvl 1000+steps to find
4. Murkrow (common) 1000+steps to find
5. Rattata (common) 0+steps to find
6. Hoothoot (common) 0+steps to find

In Dim Cave:

1. Gastly (rare) 5000+steps to find(Lvl 15)
2. Smoochum (common) 5000+steps to find
3. Gastly (common) (Lvl 10) 1000+steps to find
4. Onix (common) 1000+steps to find
5. Zubat (common) 0+steps to find
6. Machop (common) 0+steps to find

In Blue Lake:

1. Poliwag (common) 4000+steps to find
2. Dratini (common) 5000+steps to find
3. Shellder (common) 500+steps to find
4. Krabby (common) 500+steps to find
5. Tentacool (common) 0+steps to find
6. Goldeen (common) 0+steps to find

In Town Outskirts:

1. Abra (common) 5000+steps to find
2. Voltorb (common) 3000+steps to find
3. Grimer (common) 1500+steps to find
4. Koffing (common) 1500+steps to find
5. Rattata (common) 0+steps to find
6. Furret (common) 0+steps to find 

 In Hoenn Field:

1. Linoone (common) 5000+steps to find
2. Skitty (rare) 7500+steps to find
3. Volbeat (common) 2000+steps to find
4. Ilumise (common) 2000+steps to find
5. Zigzagoon (common) 0+steps to find
6. Wurmple (common) 0+steps to find

These will be the last I will show you since there are a lot. By the way I hope you all don’t think I got this on my own accord! I got all of these game facts from a site called serebii.net but that’s  just the home page. This is the side site that I got the Pokewalker info on Pokewalker courses. I would like to say again that I really like this game and for all those who own this game but have not hatched the egg then I want to give you a hint about what is in it. It starts with “tog”. Thats all I will give you other than this, Misty had it (a previous character in Pokemon). Well enjoy and I hope you will watch out for my next post on Pokemon: Soul Silver! That will most likely be when I get at least 2 more badges (when I get to the 5th badge)! Which very well might be next week! If you have any details on the game that you want me to know about please leave a comment or if you just got the game I’d like to know that too.

Thanks for reading!

CC Flickr image: Pokemon Sign by fuzzycat

This is a post that I decided to write because I read a book called Blood Beast by Darren Shan and that got me interested in demons so I decided to write a post on it. I will only talk about one demon today though. His name is Azazel and he is very much real. Well I think so anyway but who knows right? Azazel originates from Hebrew mythology. Jewish priests would put a lot of importance on 2 goats: one represented the lord the other Azazel.

Form:  He takes the shape of a man with seven snake heads and 14 faces. Also he has 12 wings! So he has 2 faces on each head and 6 wings on each side of his body.

He taught man how to make swords and knives and armor like sheilds and breastplates. He also showed them how to be vain and how to decorate themselves.

From the web site that I am getting this all from he appears to you to speak but other than that I have no idea were he can be found! “….He  was defetaed by the angel Raphael (not the ninja turtle) and buried until judgement day.”

If you would like to find out more about Azazel then click on his name.

Flickr image CC:Storm troopers By Scott smith(sRibsons) Used under the Creative commons licence-Attribution,NonCommercial,Share alike.

Thank you Scott!

A couple of weeks ago we had a science project where we had to make up our own animal. Well mine is the Spiderphant! It is a cross between a Spider and a Elephant! I wanted to do a cross between an elephant and a spider because I thought it would be cool and I think I was right! I will let you be the judge of that though.If I have caught your interest or if you just are totally bored then look at the slide show, if you would like!

Here it is!

The Spiderphant

 Well I hope you enjoyed that! Please keep a watch out for more animal and fantasy related posts!

Thanks for reading/watching!