I had to write an article for class...

Day After Tomorrow: One Day After The Landfall                       By: Maurice Joseph
October 30, 2012

The day was October 31st 1991 when an unnamed nor’easter dubbed The Perfect Storm hit North Eastern, United States and Canada. The damage was extreme and catastrophic and it remains the most infamous storm to hit the North East to date. That is until yesterday when Hurricane Sandy dubbed “Frankenstorm” in keeping with Halloween or “Superstorm Sandy” ravaged The Northeast from Maine all the way south to the Carolinas.
Forming early last week just south of Jamaica, what was tropical storm Sandy headed up North wreaking havoc throughout the Caribbean intensifying to hurricane strength just before making landfall in Jamaica, and category 2 status as it struck Cuba. Damage in the Caribbean is said to be in the millions as over 60 deaths in Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico have been attributed to Sandy.
Early this week it continued on its north, northeast track swamping the Bahamas islands with flood water and causing tidal surges affecting Miami and Ft. Lauderdale causing minor flooding and beach erosion.
By Sunday its track showed the potential for a US landfall and its size grew to immense proportions. From side to side its wind field spanned over 1000 miles. To put that into perspective, when it made landfall it affected one third of the United States, with tropical storm force winds affecting New England, to Mid-Western to Southern states, as far as Maine in the North East to Ohio in the West and Georgia in the South.
Late Saturday night up to late Sunday evening, as the threat of a landfall became imminent, evacuation orders were made by governors of various states and President Obama and Mitt Romney both cancelled their campaigning rallies. For the first time the city that never sleeps would be shut down completely. Wall Street announced its closure for a period of two days, the first time in over 124 years that it has closed due to weather. Mayor Bloomberg shut down all MTA and bus transport by 7:00 and 9:00pm respectively on Sunday night and urged the closure of Bridges and tunnels especially along the Battery Park shoreline. New Jersey governor Chris Christie instated mandatory evacuations at high-risk areas and urged all New Jerseys residents to heed the necessary warnings. In Washington D.C. President Obama came back to the white house where he made an address of the nation and declared states of emergencies for the states in the North Eastern United States.
By late Sunday night the winds began to pick up, with tropical storm gusts of over 50mph being felt along the North Carolina coast up to Boston, Massachusetts, all while the storm was over a whopping 500 miles away. Come Monday morning the scene would be completely different. Ominous dark skies covered the Northeast for miles and miles, the wind began to pick up and so did the surf. The storm surge began eroding beaches along the coast. Atlantic City in New Jersey, where hundreds of casinos were closed and evacuated began to feel the brunt of the storm.  Levees were breached and soon the storm surge began flooding the city. Everywhere down to the main streets in downtown were submerged in ferocious currents. Reports of the famous “tall ship” HMS bounty (used in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie) and its crew stranded at sea surfaced, and the National Guard was scrambled to rescue them. All but the Captain was located and rescued and unfortunately the ship sank.
As the storm moved closer ashore the situation seemed worse than what was expected, government officials had to rush to call for mandatory evacuations as it got more and more dire. By mid afternoon tropical storm force winds extended out to Maryland and Pennsylvania, while New Jersey and New York City were feeling the brunt of the hurricane force winds. Battery Park began to see flooding as the New York harbor water breached the sea wall and water began coming in. Coney Island also began seeing flooding.
Out in West Virginia along with high winds, due to a combination of a winter low plus the hurricane system a blizzard warning was in effect for West Virginia and high levels of snowfall was recorded and soon blizzard like conditions were observed. High winds toppled trees and cars, and soon roads became impassable.
By 8pm high tide had begun to rise, this spelled a triple whammy for Manhattan as coupled with normal high tide a full moon was out doubling the sea water height, this acted along with the south west winds pushing water into the Long Island Sound and the Hudson River earlier in the afternoon and a shift in winds pushing the water from the upper New York Bay through the Narrows caused a backlog of water which inundated lower Manhattan, Brooklyn and Upper and Lower East side. Throughout the night the waters just got higher and higher passing 13 feet above normal height making it the record for highest water level rise and flooding in the city’s entire history. Very soon tunnels began to get flooded.  Soon the subway stations followed, the reaction with the seawater and the electrical third rail lines in many stations caused power outages and sparked many fires. High winds caused blowouts from transformers and over 8 million residents in 15 states on the east coast are still without power.
Human tragedy didn’t escape Sandy’s wrath as so far over 30 deaths have been reported including a woman electrocuted by stepping into a puddle with a live wire and a woman from Ontario, Canada who died when a tree was felled and landed on her.
So far the total damage done by Sandy cannot be accounted for, but is speculated to be in the billions, the highest ever for the US, after all it did earn it’s name “Frankenstorm.” President Obama is said to be touring the area later this week.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower Trailer

Life's perfect when your favourite book is being turned into a movie with three of your favourite people; Emma Watson, Logan Lerman and Ezra Miller; great 80's music such as The Smiths you are bound to be overly ecstatic. here's the trailer to The Perks of Being a Wallflower, out already in a cinema near you, and soon internationally.

Hitchcock Trailer

Watch the trailer above, it says it all.

Drive

Ryan Gosling's work over the past few years has been really fascinating, from his performances in movies to his side work in his band Dead Man's Bones. But I must say the movie Drive is one of my favourites. From the cinematography to the electric soundtrack, this movie shall be one of my favourites. I personally think he gave one of his best performances to date. This movie is worth seeing if you're a fan of film noir and good music.

Finally!

It's been 3 years that I've been waiting to watch this movie,and today I finally did!

It was well worth the wait, absolutely perfect flick. I mean obviously, that's what one would expect when you bring together the forces that be Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page.

X-Men: First Class

I must say I was pleasantly surprised by this 5th installment of the franchise. It was both action packed and smartly presented, backed by a great script and cast. The Michael Vaughn film was a refreshing comeback to the X-Men series, and to the superhero movie genre on a whole, which seemed to be experiencing a creative drought recently. The prequel boasts a wide range of well known cast members,namely James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and January Jones(of Mad Men fame). Riddled with cameos that would make any fan boys jizz themselves, a touch of Mad Men, and a pinch of Inglorious Basterds, this film is definitely one of the best of the franchise, and of the year. Plus any film which features a soundtrack that enticing, accompanied by music from Edith Piaf, as well as an interesting flagship song(disclaimer: music video in link may contain spoilers), is worth watching in my book.

Arcade Fire: Scenes from the suburbs

I know I've been cheating on blogger with tumblr for a while now but I must admit that I do miss my blogging here. This was a great film called "Nassainces des pieuvres" or "water lilies"

The awesome song in the trailer is "trahison" by Vitalic

It's Almost Back!!!! :D

Sleigh Bells - Infinity Guitars

I must say this song grew on me....it definitely had to

Skins is back!!!

It's January and series five of Skins will be back with a bang, on the 27th at 10PM on E4. I surely know it will be better than that crap MTV calls Skins USA (complete ultimate failure and letdown). At least soon I'll have the UK version on the air again to keep my mind off of that. So heres to the fifth series and the third generation of Skins, let the unadulterated chaos begin.

Totally Adicted!!! 2 door cinema club, shameless etc.

So it looks like MTV is finally coming back, well slowly but surely. Although I would usually have to get up with the birds to see any musical programming on MTV, it is so worth waking up really early in the morning, to watch AMTV (really suitable name now that I think of it). The time difference during winter also helps (1 hour behind Eastern time)lessen the necessity of getting up early for at least 5 or so months.

Today watching AMTV while trying not to burn my t-shirt while ironing I stumbled upon a video premiere from a really cool band from Ireland(land of my ancestors, well one of the various lands of my ancestors) called Two Door Cinema Club with their video for the song "what you know"

Two Door Cinema Club - New Music - More Music Videos

Speaking of MTV next week Monday is the date for the premiere of Skins USA, which I am highly anticipating/dreading at the same time. Afterall a remake of one of the best UK shows, which is not only notorious for pushing the boundaries of showing teenage drug and alcohol abuse(or enjoyment as some might put it) but also for being very frank and real in their dialog( probably the most expletives you would hear in a primetime show, well unless you're accustomed to watching E4 ). It also has very strong thematic interpretations on teenage sex and sexuality à la Emily and Naomi in series( aka "season") 3 & 4, or even the completely weird love triangle in series 1. I would love to see how MTV interprets and rehashes this show, and from what can be seen from the trailer it looks like a watered down and tame portrayal of the original, but who knows I heard the "f" word in an online promo, so I might just be pleasantly surprised (as they say don't judge a book by its cover, only it would be a show by its promo in this case). Hopefully the promo was just watered down for tv airing, as it has an MA rating, which translated into my rating system = show actually worth watching.

Skins - MTV Shows

Furthermore speaking of US remakes to UK shows, I must say I was pleasantly surprised by Showtimes take on once again E4's Shameless. The acting was brilliant, the storyline even though it was basically a copy and paste of the pilot of the original, like any good plagerist, or plageriser ( however you spell it)(aka college student) knows tweak it up here and there, and it did feel like something new and fresh even different.



oh yeah Happy New Year!

Movie of the decade: C.R.A.Z.Y. : un film Canadien

I first came across this film due to my interest in French cinema. As I stumbled through the vast archives of "les films français" I found it interesting to see a movie out of Québécois Canada. I thought to myself this may just be a breath of fresh air to the majority of depressing and angsty genres I was accustomed to with films from France. This gives me a whole new meaning to the term french cinema ( although technically since it comes from Canada I doubt i should term it french cinema). This movie was perfect in every way, showing the trials of family life, love, and being an outcast. I must warn you that some of the themes in this film may not sit well with some narrow minded people, who can't look past and see what this movie is truly about. Although being quite a long film, just over two hours, I can say that it was one of the best two hours I've spent in my life, I cannot see one scene being cut from it. This film I can say from just watching it once, is definitely my favorite movie for this decade, and probably my favorite movie of all time. This is one movie that can truly bring out all the emotions in a person.





Set in the 60's and 70's in Quebec, written by François Boulay, Jean-Marc Vallée, the movie delves into the lives of a suburban family living in Québec, Canada, telling the tale of a five brothers and their parents, revealing the social breakdown and the taboos facing that era. Je ne peux pas expliquer plus sur ce film, alors c'est le synopsis du site officiel






SYNOPSIS

Un film fou, magique, mystique, à la fois pudique et sexy, drôle et touchant.

C.R.A.Z.Y., c’est d’abord un portrait de famille qui dépeint la vie souvent extraordinaire de gens ordinaires à la poursuite de leur bonheur. C’est aussi une histoire d’amour entre un fils et son père. Le drame de celui-là qui, pour préserver l’amour de celui-ci, nie avec acharnement sa nature profonde. C.R.A.Z.Y., c’est l’histoire de Zachary Beaulieu, quatrième d’une famille de cinq garçons, né le 25 décembre 1960. Avec humour et sarcasme, Zac nous raconte les malheurs d’être né le jour de Noël, de se sentir différent des autres et de grandir dans une famille de gars auxquels il essaie désespérément de ressembler.C.R.A.Z.Y. est une fable mystique et fantaisiste sur l’âme humaine dans toute sa beauté, sa folie, sa poésie.



p.s. How could I forget, This movie has some really awesome music, the best in a movie since The boat that rocked aka Pirate Radio ( another awesome movie). Probably because both films share almost the same timeline with the likes of musical geniuses such as Pink Floyd, The Cure, The Rolling Stones and the one and only Patsy Cline.

Unity

This video shows not only the rich ethnical and cultural diversity of my beautiful metropolitian country of Trinidad and Tobago, but it shows the richness of our music and how we as a people live in unity and harmony with one another, despite "creed and race".

Change..... contined

Going along with my decision to keep this blog fresh by using a new background per week, I have decided to go with one of my photos of a sunset in Paris.

Aung San Suu Kyi Freed finally!!!

It was just last year during my travels to Brussels where I saw protest for freedom in Iran, and banners around the European Union headquaters demanding the release of Aung San Suu Kyi,rightful leader of Burma now known as Myanmar, held in exile.

It has been quite awhile that I have been following the developments surrounding the house arrest of 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has been under house confinement for the past 15 out of 21 years by the suppresive military dictatorship of Senior General Than Shwe (tied winner of my international scum of the year along with North Korea's Kim Jong-Il), and I'm very happy to say that as of November 13, 2010 she has been released. This is the beconing of a new beginning for Burma, and a very bright day in this ever darkening world.

Her release comes just on the heels of the 2010 general elections results in Burma, a beutiful country tarnished by the selfish, stagnant, and repulsive rule by one of the world's top ten most evil dictators( why is Asia so prominant in the ranking of worst dictators? a la China and NK and Myanmar, well I guess that is the price you have to pay for progress, or what one deems progress ).

Larry Clark's Bully

There are movies that stick with you for a lifetime, then there are some that would haunt you. One such movie is Bully(based on a true story), which tells a tale of carefree young adults, teenagers that would leave you feeling disturbed and sick and enjoying every bit of it.
It's creator, Larry Clark, the genius, mastermind, sociopath behind this tantalizing tale of deciet, murder, vice,and lies spins a web of suspense that would keep you on the edge of your seats.

Mr. Clark is also famous for his equally deliciously repulsive works such as Ken Park and Kids

Photography

Well I'm not a professional photographer and I don't have a clue as in how to operate Photoshop but I do like photography, so here are some of my amateur shots and edits.

METRIC

I know my posts these day's have become shorter and shorter, but that is due to me wanting to keep up with posts while juggling time spent with class assignments, facebook, and most important sleep. I just wanted to share one of the most amazing bands I have ever encountered