Review: Pokémon HeartGold (and SoulSilver) Version(s)

Note: I am only just past the seventh Gym, so this review may not include the stuff you get in Kanto and the remaining of Johto.

I have been a casual Pokémon since I got a GameBoy Advance when I was eight. Now, six years later, I still don’t think I’ve fully outgrown it. I was never really a huge fan, but I did like the games a lot. I borrowed some books and movies from the library, and I got the games starting with Pokémon FireRed (LeafGreen) though always a year or so late (as this overdue review proves). I bought them because I knew you could get 80+ hours of gameplay from it, which some games (that have almost the same price) don’t even come close to giving.  The gameplay is always amazing, easy enough for a six-year-old to understand, but with elements (like EV’s and such) that can go pretty deep.

Enough of the wordy background. On to this game. I never played Gold or Silver, so I can’t give the comparisons many people on the internet give, but I love the game. The Pokémon are cool (Johto has the coolest Pokémon, in my opinion), the new touch-screen controls are pretty intuitive (though sometimes annoying if you’ve played a lot of Diamond and Pearl), and there’s a whole lot of storyline and post-story gameplay. Besides Gold or Silver, there is no other game that has sixteen gyms and two full regions! There are cool mini-games to play in the Pokéathlon, and everywhere you go, there is always people to talk to, and get things from. The caves are pretty diabolical at times, they’ll certainly be a huge chunk out of the 80+ hours you’ll spend on this game. On the whole, I think this is the best Pokémon game to date, although I haven’t played Black or White (they don’t sound as good to me compared to the good old days).

After you’ve beaten the Elite Four, there’s still the Kanto region, which has changed quite a bit, and you can also start (or continue) EV training. (On a related but tangential note, I got PokéRus! I’m not the best EV trainer, so I think I’ve wasted all my Pokémon’s EV’s though: maybe PokéRus were a bad thing!) I’m really excited to see how Kanto looks after three years, because FireRed was my first game and it’ll be really nostalgic to walk those paths again (I’ve lost the GBA game).

OK, I think the well-thought-out topics have started to become a long and confusing rant, so I’ll just go! Tell us what you think about the game in the comments!

Files: Shorthand Manuals

OK, for people who want to learn shorthand online, sometimes looking for material can be a wild goose chase. When I first started learning Teeline, it seemed there wasn’t much online, and the courses that were online costs money. There are many free courses online, but a lot will only take you part-way through the theory. Manuals are nice because they follow a complete and strict course. I did manage to find a manual for Teeline online, along with some other shorthand systems so you can have the choice if you want to download them here. They should all be open source or public domain, but if you do own the rights to any of these manuals, contact us and I’ll gladly take the offending manual down.

Teeline Manual

Gregg Pre-Anniversary (1916) Manual

Gregg Anniversary (1929) Manual

Isaac Pitman (1852) Manual

Feel free to download any of them. This is a rather incomplete list, so if you find any better manuals (Handywrite, Speedwriting, Gregg Simplified, etc.) that can legally be put on here, let us know!

News: Giant Panda Eats Meat

A giant panda was recently caught on camera eating the carcass of a takin (Himalayan goat-antelope). Scientists say that this is not all that uncommon, as pandas evolved from carnivorous animals. That being said, a photo of one eating meat is still quite rare. This particular picture, shared by The Nature Conservancy, was captured by a motion-sensing camera in what will be the Montianling County Land Trust Reserve in northern Sichuan, China.

Source: TreeHugger

Review: Diamine Meadow Ink

While purchasing my brand new Lamy Safari Fountain Pen, I bought a bottle of Diamine Meadow ink. I am very satisfied with this ink so far, so without further ado, here’s the review!

The paper used was regular Staples 20 lb copy paper. The ink was swabbed 3 times in the “Swab” section and the water was smeared 3 times in the “Water” section. Thanks for reading!

Review: Aurora Blue Ink

After seeing good reviews on Fountain Pen Network and deciding that I needed a change from Waterman Black, I decided to get this as my next bottle of ink. It’s a good dark blue, though it looks really purple in the image below (maybe it’s just my monitor). 

The translation for the scrawl you see in the Notes sections is ‘Though a little expensive, it’s a nice blue for work and school. It’s not at all waterproof, but it’s nice because it goes on wet and purple, then dries to a nice dark blue. Definitely one of my favourite inks!’ The paper used is regular 20 lb copy paper. The swab is three layers of ink, and the water test is three smears with water on completely dried ink. Thanks for reading!

How-to: Shorthand Speedbuilding

When learning to write in shorthand, often the theory (while extremely important) will not be adequate to build proper speed. The solution for most is to get some dictation recordings and practice by listening and writing down what the speaker says as quickly and as accurately as possible. Here’s the second problem: How do you get dictation recordings if you’re: a) a kid (like me); b) living somewhere where they are not readily available (e.g. Nepal, Botswana, or the Falklands); or c) cheap (sort of like me)?

What I first did was to get a book, choose a nicely sized paragraph, and with a timer and a calculator, see how fast I could write the paragraph. It works, but it wastes time while you count words and type numbers in, and it’s a little boring. It also doesn’t really count as dictation.

What I did next was to go to this YouTube channel, which I’ve already mentioned in a previous post. It’s great because it has speeds down to 20 wpm and can therefore be used by an almost complete beginner. The downside is that many of the recordings have really long, scientific, medical words which – while they may be useful to journalists and such – are not really useful to people like me who just want to take down notes in class.

The last thing I want to talk about is a truly awesome website called Shorthand Shorthand Shorthand. It has loads of info on shorthand types, tips for learning shorthand, and tips for speedbuilding. The thing I find the most useful is something the author calls Self Dictation. It’s not exactly an extremely creative idea (it’s a series paragraphs on which you write each shorthand outline on it’s corresponding word) but it follows a strict structure of 50 exercises on a whopping 71 pages, so you’ll find yourself improving with every exercise. To obtain the Word Document, you’ll have to write an email to him, but he is really quick with replying with the file (I got mine after only one hour). He also updates his site with new dictations every month, so you can do the traditional method of speedbuilding on his site too.

None of these sites have the best way to build speed, but I think that with a mixture of different exercises and methods, we should all be zooming along at our desired speed before the world ends in December.

How-To: Make Cheese Curds

Although making cheese at home may sound like an extremely difficult task, making basic cheese curds is actually incredibly easy. You don’t need to use exact measurements nor do you need to any obscure instruments to make it.

You will need:

• Milk
• Vinegar
• Salt (optional)
• Stove
• Pot
• Colander
• Clean cloth
• Bowl (optional)

Instructions:

1.  Pour milk into the pot and bring to a boil, stirring constantly
2. Gradually add vinegar until the milk separates into cheese curds and liquid whey
3. Separate the cheese curds and whey by placing a cloth over a colander and filtering the contents of the pot through the cloth and colander and into a bowl (or the sink)
4. Remove the cheese from on top of the cloth and add salt if desired.

Note: If you would like to use the whey you collected in your bowl (as it is quite nutritious) consider visiting this forum.

News: Norwegian Coast Covered with Dead Fish

On New Years Eve, 44-year-old Jan-Petter Jorgensen was walking his dog, Molly when he discovered a local beach blanketed with an estimated 20 tons of dead herring. Shortly later, the massive haul of fish disappeared mysteriously back into the North Sea. Researchers and officials are looking for an explanation as to why such a large number of dead fish washed up on the shore.

Source: Yahoo!

News: Obesity Campaign Causes Controversy

Strong4Life, an non-profit organization in Atlanta, Georgia is attempting to reduce Georgia’s high child obesity rate (40% are either overweight or obese) by releasing some rather controversial advertisements. The ads feature an obese or overweight child, a fact about obesity, and their slogan: Stop sugarcoating it, Georgia. Some say that a “blunt” and “straight talk” approach is exactly what Georgia needs. However, critics find that the ads shame families and individuals into losing weight and that it is “ineffective” and “damaging”.

There is no doubt that this is a huge crisis, but is this a fair and effective way to deal with it? Leave us a comment.

Source: YouTube

News: David Tennant gets married

Okay, normally here at Kantaloupe, we generally stay away from celebrity-stalking when doing News articles, but I thought I should kick off the year with something nice, and my only excuse for this is that it has to do with Doctor Who. Here goes!

Last night, David Tennant married Georgia Moffett, the daughter of previous Doctor Who actor Peter Davison. The ceremony was held in London, and newspaper sources said the couple tried to keep the ceremony as private as possible.

The two met when she was a co-star on Doctor Who, playing the Doctor’s Daughter in the episode of the same name. The couple have been planning to marry since Tennant proposed last Christmas, and they already have an eight-month-old daughter named Olivia.

When asked of whether he approves of David, Peter Davison said, ‘It’s great because he’s a genuinely nice guy.’ Tennant has stated that he grew up watching Davison’s Doctor, and that his episodes were some of his favourites.

We wish the new couple a Happy New Year, and many great times ahead. What do you think of this news. Should we cover more stories like this? Tell us in the comments.