I’m amazed at how successful Candy Crush Saga has been. My girlfriend has been playing it non-stop for months and is at level 400 or something. To me, it’s just another match-3 game like Bejeweled Blitz or one of the countless games that proceeded it. I mean, it’s really well done and the graphics and music are superb, but it’s the same dang game that we’ve all been playing for years. First on casual download sites like Pogo.com and Big Fish and then on Facebook and iPhones and Android.
At least, that’s how I felt until I started my own Candy Crush addiction. I’m only at level 150 or thereabouts, but I play it a lot. I don’t play on mobile like my girlfriend and instead stick to playing on Facebook. I don’t know why that is, but it is. I’m not that great, especially at the timed levels which totally throw me for a loop. But I enjoy playing the game even though I was certain that I’d hate it.
This past weekend, Pottermore finally arrived for the public after many months of beta-testing. The online web site was announced last Summer and the first million users were allowed into the site in late August and early September.
Pottermore is essentially an extended online reading site. A lot of people mistakenly think of it as a game and while it does have some basic game elements, it’s not particularly “game-like” in most respects. But it does allow you to explore the world of Harry Potter in a very linear fashion. You move along through the story via chapters and moments, almost exactly as you would while reading the book. In Pottermore, however, you interact with the environment, looking for certain items along the way, such as books or potion ingredients. Finding them is a matter of patience and perseverance. If you’re short on both, there are many Pottermore cheats to help you out. I found those ones on a Poptropica cheats site, but that’s a whole different story.
As of now, there’s only one book available in Pottermore. It’s the first book and it contains seventeen chapters. Inside there are several smaller stories hidden. Many of these are notes and commentary from author J.K. Rowling. they contain additional thoughts and insights into the story that weren’t included in either the books or movies.
Once you complete the story, you can take part in some limited activity for your Hogwarts house as you try to gain points through duels and potion making.
If you’re a Harry Potter fanatic, you’ll want to dive into Pottermore and see what it’s all about. If you’re more of a hard-core gamer, you’ll probably be disappointed.
I’m lying down in my bedroom on a cheap mattress with my pencil and pen looking for inspiration in my writing. And my mind wandered to none other than Winston Churchill, one of the great leaders of the 20th Century. He was the prime minister of Great Britain during World War II from 1940-1945 and then served again from 1951-1955. He is known very well for his speeches, some of which are fantastic. He was also a prolific writer and an accomplished painter. It was his writing that made him stand out and in particular some of the specific classic literary techniques that he used. Here are a few examples of how he wove them into his speeches.
Paradox
A paradox is a contradictory, but often revealing, logical anomaly. It is a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth.
Churchill said: “…decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity…”
Oxymoron
This is the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas with symmetrical phrasing. It is a figure of speech by which a locution produces an incongruous, seemingly self-contradictory effect.
Churchill said: “…an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.”
Epizeuxis
A figure by which a word is repeated with vehemence or emphasis.
Churchill said: “…this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never…”
Periphrasis
Circuitously elaborate expression.
Churchill said: “…it cannot in the opinion of His Majesty’s Government be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance f the word without some risk of terminological inexactitude.”
That last one is my favorite because it seems like that’s how all politicians talk today. These are just a few examples of how Churchill wove classical literary techniques into his speeches and writings. And my favorite speech of all is probably one of his most famous, Their Finest Hour. This speech was delivered on June 18, 1940 to the House of Commons. Here is the final paragraph. I get goosebumps every time I read or hear it.
What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”
