If you have been to the cinema lately, chances will be that you have a very good idea of what 3D movies are like. In fact, there are 3D movies being released all the time, Avatar being the most popular one lately.

If you have had the opportunity of seeing a 3D movie, you were probably astonished by the amazing viewing pleasure of 3D images, given the fact that the 3D effect is not overdone and making you nauseous.

To be honest, I am the type of person who prefers to stay in the comfort of my own home to watch movie, instead of spending time in the movie theater with strangers coughing here and there.  If you are anything like me, you would probably be thrilled about the idea of a 3D television.

What makes 3D television special is its ability to convert any, by that I mean, any television program from 2D image to 3D illusion, all in the comfort of your own home.

Despite the ridiculously high price tag of these 3D televisions on sale in most electronic stores, I would definitely get one of these for myself.  However, it would not be a bad idea to wait for this technology gets even better.  At the CES Convention this year, 3D television without the use of polarized or cyan 3D glasses was introduced. Although it is not going to be for sale any time soon, but the technology is available and sooner or later, it will become commercialized. After all, no one wants to wear a special glasses to watch TV.

I’ll stop there and I want to know what you think about 3D TV: Is it a good idea or bad idea?  Would you spend thousands more for these kind of TV?

A follow up on Sunday evenings 82nd Academy Awards! The hosts Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin started the ceremony with a glamorous entrance being lowered from the ceiling and humor was present throughout the show, especially ones regarding Avatar. (Ben Stiller’s Na’vi makeup suits him)

Speaking of Avatar, the movie was highly anticipated and was cinematically stunning which paid off, earning it the title of ‘highest grossing film of all time in North America.  So it came as no surprise when it got nominated for 9 Academy Awards, and many expected it to clean out the award shelves at the Oscars. As it turns out, an unexpected underdog bumped Avatar off and sweep the stage, winning a total of 6 Oscars. (The critics who disliked Avatar must have been rejoicing!)

The Hurt Locker won in the categories of: Directing ,Film Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Writing (Original Screenplay), and last but not least, Best Picture.

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What is Skype?

Skype allows  millions of people to connect for free across the world.  Skype brings people together.  Skype is software that allows people to make phone calls and video calls to other people all over the world, all free or at a very cheap price.  It’s a lot more cost-efficient, and more fun than long distance talking!

Last week, I used Skype to talk to my cousin and see his newborn baby boy!  It was an amazing experience, and these are the types of conversations that Skype wants to promote.

To register for Skype or find more info, click here!  You won’t regret it and most of your friends probably already have it!  Have fun, and Skype away!

Continuing on in the adventure of exploring new authors…Here’s where I’m at:

Zombie novels are lame… at least that is what I believed until I read World War Z by Max Brooks.  I thought World War Z was going to be another one of those zombie stories where a group of people find a bunch of guns, kill a lot of zombies, and end up dying in the end.  My prediction was far off.

The first surprise was the setup of this book.  Instead of having a story that follows one or a few protagonists, this book is composed of a series of fictional interviews.  The second surprise was that instead of writing a story, the author decided to create a world through a vast amount of perspectives caused by the interviews with the different.  And the third surprise was that the novel focused much more on society, governance, military strategy, and human nature than it did on physical combat against zombies.  The fourth surprise  for me was how knowledgeable the author was: he knew so much information – societal, scientific, and political – it was amazing how accurate it made everything.

Basically, there has been a zombie virus which led to the most devastating war in human history. A reporter decides to go around the war interviewing people involved in various stages, or important events of this zombie apocalypse.  There are dozens of interviews ranging from average civilians to government officials.  This allows the novel to be open ended instead of having the author dictate what’s is right or wrong (like in normal novels).

All of these aspects create a genius novel that is extremely realistic and un-put-down-able.  It deals with about every theme there is, and explores how society deals when faced with such a huge threat.  I think I’ll have to remove a book from my  top ten list of youth novels to make room for this one.  I recommend this to all readers 14 and up.  This novel is definately a 5/5 .

It’s been a couple of weeks since we lasted posted about the Mayor’s Youth Council but we’re back with the MYC  Podcast. As a refresher, the Mayor’s Youth Council is the voice of young people in Calgary. This week, the MYC is meeting up with the Mayor to present about some issues that matter to them. To further their efforts the MYC has been working on podcasts.  The podcasts are meant to be fun but also informative. It’s meant to give Calgary a small dose of what young people think about local and national issues and topics. So without further ado, I give you the MYC Podcast:

Part 1:

[wpaudio url=”https://youthareawesome.com/audio/mycpodcast3part1.mp3″ text=”MYC Podcast #3 Part 1″]

Part 2:

[wpaudio url=”https://youthareawesome.com/audio/mycpodcast3part2.mp3″ text=”MYC Podcast #3 Part 2″]

Part 3:

[wpaudio url=”https://youthareawesome.com/audio/mycpodcast3part3.mp3″ text=”MYC Podcast #3 Part 3″]

Let us know what you think.  The MYC will begin posting new podcasts every couple of weeks.

Have you ever wanted to create positive social change?

How about develop your leadership skills?  Or connect with other young people in Calgary?

Well, lucky for you, The Beanstalk Project is an initiative that engages youth to do all those things.  In fact, they hold various “un-conferences” for youth to attend to develop all their fantastic, world-changing ideas and new skills while meeting tons of other youth, and adult mentors.  The Beanstalk Project is launching in Calgary at the U of C through an “un-conference” on the weekend of March 19 – 21, 2010, which you can register to attend.  It’ll be awesome, but don’t take our word for it…Check out the video below from The Beanstalk Project’s creator, Joel Hilchey:

[youtube WqtLErFu_k4]

The world is just a little bit too safe.

This is how the Mongol Rally opens its description.  It then goes on to pose the following to prospective participants: What if you want things to go wrong?

And indeed, this is the nature of the Mongol Rally, a race across the desert that is really more of a personal adventure than anything.

Only about half of the teams enrolled make it through the 10,000 miles and across the finish line, but every team contributes to raising funds for charities as the race goes on.  In 2007, the event raised over £200,000 and they’re looking to smash that the next time around.

What you probably don’t know is that we had a Canadian team in this race.  James, Anna, and Colin drove from England to Mongolia and were taping footage as they went.  They’ve teamed up with the Public Library to bring this footage to Calgarians, and will be presenting “Drive by Shooting: A Video Adventure” at the Central Library in the John Dutton Theatre today, March 5th, from 6:30-9:00 p.m.  It’s a great opportunity to see parts of the world you haven’t experienced, and simply to support fellow Canadians.

We all already know that Youtube is pretty cool and awesome…and an essential procrastination tool!  But did you know about its Music Discovery Project and Playlist Creation Tool?  My friend showed this to me the other day and I have to say that it’s pretty neat.

Yeah, that’s a bit of a mouthful to say.  I guess that’s why the URL for it is just “/disco” added onto the original youtube.com — gotta love simplicity!  So anyways, what is this?  Well, the name and the page itself is actually pretty self-explanatory in my opinion.  Again, I’m liking the simplicity of it. 🙂

Basically, you type in the song or artist you wish to listen to and hit the “Disco!” button.  And what it does is compile for you a list of songs by the artist you searched for (or the artist of the song you searched).  So if you really wanted to listen to one particular artist, you could search them up and this would generate a playlist of their songs for you (instead of you having to go to each separate video and make one yourself).  But the usefulness of this feature doesn’t stop there; it suggests to you other songs or artists that are similar to what you looked for so you can add those songs to the playlist it has created for you (if you want to that is–and you can always take songs off the playlist it first created).

If you like the playlist, you can save it!  If not, clear it and start over.  A playlist just means it will move from one video/song to the next instead of you having to click on a new one every time a video or song finishes.  In addition to making a playlist, it also gives you a quick blurb about the artist you looked up.

However, I guess there are a few downsides to this.  If you enter a song name on its own without knowing the artist, it usually gives you the most popular song, which is not necessarily the one you were searching for.  But I guess that’s a downside for normal Youtube searches anyways.  Plus, you can also always do all of these searches on the normal website and just use the “Related Videos” box…and get a video that’s not about 1/8th the size of your screen or something.

But I think this is a nifty feature regardless.  I’m still not entirely sure what this feature of Youtube is called though; I just call it Youtube Disco…for simplicity’s sake!

Happy song hunting!

I think many would agree that watching Joannie Rochette skate beautifully and win a bronze medal was one of the most inspirational moments of the Olympics.  Rochette was stunned by her mother’s sudden death only days before she was set to compete in women’s figure skating.  Full of courage and strength, she decided to still compete.  To me, the beauty of her performances was that she was no longer skating for the crowd, a good score, or a spot on the podium – she was skating for her mom.  That she was able to win a medal and inspire a nation was just an added bonus.  But Joannie’s difficult journey doesn’t end here.  With her competition behind her, Joannie will finally have time and space to grieve for her mom.

As we experience grief in our own lives, many people will want to be strong like Joannie Rochette.  But if you saw Joannie after she finished skating her short program, her pain was very evident.  Let’s face it, grief is hard.  The loss of a close loved one naturally hurts us deeply, but other things like losing contact with a friend or having a pet die are also very difficult to deal with.  Whether you realize it or not, even graduating from high school and turning eighteen can be a grieving process as you leave behind your childhood.

Remember that grief is a process, not an event.  There is no definite ending point to grief and no time limit.  So don’t try to rush grieving.  Although everyone will grieve differently, it is perfectly normal to cycle through the different stages of grief: shock/denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.  Not everyone will experience all these stages, or in this order, but this model gives a sense of the complexity of grieving.

Even if it is tempting to bottle up your feelings and ‘move on’, it is not usually the healthiest thing to do.  It will help to talk about your loss and take time to feel the sadness. Over time, it will get better.  If you ever feel overwhelmed by grief, feel free to call the Teen Line at 403-264-8336, we are here to talk!