Divergent: The New Dystopia

One after the other young adult film adaptation hits the box offices. Right now everyone is more than excited about Mortal Instrument: City of Bones, but a few days ago the first trailer of Divergent was launched. And yes, it can be said the movie is more than divergent by itself.

Although Mortal Instruments still sticks to our familiair vampires and werewolves, divergent follows into the footsteps of The Hunger Games. The latter already made us acquainted with a future we would rather not live in, but the Chicago displayed in Divergent is just as unpleasant. The story, written by Veronica Roth and first publishedi n 2011, follows Tris, who - of course - has always been an outsider. She does not fit in and this is once more confirmed on 'Choosing Day'. The future citizens of Chicago are divided into five factions, each one representing a particular virtue: Abnegation (the selfless), Amity (the peaceful), Candor (the honest), Dauntless (the brave), and Erudite (the intelligent). When reaching the age of sixteen one has to take a test that will decide which faction one belongs to. Beatrice, however, does not belong to any of the factions, she is Divergent and that's strictly forbidden!

Divergent stars Shailene Woodley as Tris. Yes, one of the girls we used to know from The O.C. and who later took on the lead role in The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Interesting? Promising? Time will tell.

Donkey Products

 

A pancake pencil case, a graffity spray salt & pepper set, and a Nintendo Gameboy cookie-cutter! Too much awesomeness for one to confescate alone and sure worth a blogpost.

As a regular visitor of the Urban Outfitters online store I stumbled upon Donkey Products, the designer of all these great novelties. The design label is located in Hamburg, Germany, and was established in 2008. Their aim is to just design products that are original, humorous, and fun!

All their products can be found in the online shop (click!) and are available in, yes, ALL regions! Meaning this awesomeness is not only available in the United States, as Amazon likes telling us so badly. Donkey Products delivers to all countries worldwide, no fuss. To avoid high shipping costs though, a part of their collection is also available on bijenkorf.nl, cadeau.nl, or bol.com.

Donkey Products, Urban Gifts for Happy People! ;)

Toadette vs. Goombella

I have been a big fan of Toadette ever since I met her in Mario Party 6, but it was not till a few days ago I became acquainted with Goombella. Although both of them are very cute, girly, and adventurous, I started wondering if it's really that simple for Nintendo: Take an original, put a ribbon upon its head or make it pink, et voilà, a new character.

 

Goombella

Goombella is Mario's 'Hermione', being a junior at the University of Goom studying Archeology. She is a know-it-all with a strong opinion, which can be noticed during her dialogues in the various Paper Mario games she appears in. She will regularly remind you of the fact that she is jealous of the Paragoombas wings.

 

Toadette

Unfortunately, my big heroïne Toadette is not that interesting at al. She is just a pink 'Toad' with two braids, of whom we do not have any background information. Just that she was first introduced in Mario Kart: Double Dash! to accompany Toad as driving partner. This indeed was a case of 'just make it pink'.

Wendy O. Koopa

This villain I first met in Super Mario World (SNES). She is the only girl member of Bowser's bad-ass team, the Koopalings, and therefore indeed wears a pink ribbon. Wendy is one of the more well thought-out sub characters, but this probably has to do with the fact that she has been around for so long and appeared in the Mario comics as well. She was named after Wendy O. Williams of punkband the Plasmatics and has a short temper. According to Nintendo she is kind of a tomboy as well, because she constantly has to prove herself among her male team members. Next to that, she turns out to be materialistic and to love disco dancing.

Holly Koopa

While digging, I also remembered this female Koopa Troopa, appearing in Mario Party 8. This is the only game in which she can be seen and there is not much about her (yet!). However, she is wealthy, likes candy, and wears a hat, fyi.

For now, the answer to my wonders is indeed yes... and no, as Goombella and Wendy are far more awesome than most of us probably knew!

Orange is the New Black: Review

After having spent in prison with the inmates from behind my computer screen for about a week, I'm sure Netflix' Orange is the New Black is one of the best TV-series of 2013.

Orange is the New Black follows Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling), who is sent to women's prison because she transported a suitcase of drugs money for her former girlfriend years ago. That's right, although Piper is engaged to her boyfried Larry now, she used to be a lesbian, as are many of her fellow inmates.

Although the pilot episode contains quite a lot vulgar scenes (which I absolutely dislike and are also the reason I don't watch Game of Thrones), the underlying storyline and subplots are more than just entertaining. In prison Piper walks into this ex-girlfriend of hers, called Alex (Laura Prepon), which brings along the obvious consequences. Each episode also hightlights the pre-prisonlife of one of the other inmates, which makes you sympathize with every single one of them. Next to that, a lot of intrigue and drama is going on in this high-schoolish, 'small village'-like ghetto called prison, which makes sure you will be clustered toyour screen for t he full hour the episode lasts.

Orange is the New Black is a mixture of primarily comedy, with crime and drama, based on the memoires of Piper Kerman. According to other reviews, the series reflects prisonlife fairly well. An interesting, very originnal primetime TV-series of newcomer Neflix, which I now count on to produce more awesome TV-series in the future.

P.S. There's also lots of great acting to enjoy and a lot of faces to recognize from the past!