Change of adress

Just to let you know I have finally figured out how to change my website address to what I had originally meant it to be, http://www.jmlivinginodyssey.blogspot.com sorry if this is even more confusing!

Be Thankful

  This Thanksgiving I feel more thankful than I have the past few years. If you are not thankful this morning read the image below and see what you do have to be thankful for.
  Also don't forget to listen to Thanksgiving episodes today such as, "Thanksgiving at home," "B-TV Thanks," "A Thanksgiving Carol," and my favorite, "Thank you God."
  And have a happy Thanksgiving!

Review:Square One

Square One

Summary:

Matthew Parker joins a mysterious new club and refuses to tell Emily Jones about their activities. Emily decides that this is a mystery that she must solve.

Review:

Plot/writing: I thought that this episode was a little bit boring, but not bad. I think that it would have been better if it would have had another plot. It sort of had two plots but it was more like 1 1/2. There was the one about the club and the one about Matthew and Emily's friendship. I would have liked something a little bit more interesting.

  And also the club wasn't very important or suspenseful like you would think a secret club would be.

 Acting/Characters: I don't know if anyone else noticed this but the only real kid actor was Matthew in this episode. Pete, Ryan and Emily are all played by adults and whats even weirder Nelson is played by an adult woman. I think that the only really convincing actors/actress were Georgina Cordova and Adam Wylie. Christina Pucclli is pretty good to but Robin Knight was not very good and didn't sound like someone in high school much less someone in middle school.

  I thought that the characters that were selected for the club were kind of weird because in the Kidsboro series both Ryan and Pete didn't seem like smarty kind of kids. But it was good to see Matthew spending time with other friends besides Emily.

  At the beginning Emily was really annoying but at the end her character seemed to get better in the end.

 

  Lesson: this episode also had a good lesson about trust. And hopefully this will improve Emily's character and she will now treat Matthew better.

 

Over all it was pretty good, I will give it 3/5.

 

Behind the scenes of "A Capsule Comes to Town"

Behind the Scenes: A Capsule Comes to Town

 

  This was a long one so I only posted the first paragraph.

  "This episode featured the documentary that Connie started working on in, "A Chip of the Shoulder" (album 49). It was presented as an episode of a fictional series called At Home in My Town. We persuaded Focus on the Family commentator  Stuart Shepard to play the host. It is the only episode that doesn't feature Chris's voice anywhere in the program."

- The Official Guide p.489

 Since reading this I have heard Stuart Shepherd on a Christian radio program and I thought that it was AIO when he said, "and I am Stuart Shepherd," just like in, "A Capsual comes to town."

Official AIO Podcast 108

In this podcast Adam Wylie is interviewed about his character, Ryan Cummings and what it is like acting as an adult playing a kid character in the studio. There is also a preview of the upcoming episode "Square One." If you want to listen to it go to http://www.odysseyscoop.com/.

Review: The Owlnapping

The Owlnapping

Summary:

When the Odyssey Middle School basketball team’s mascot is stolen, they suddenly start losing all their games. The team considers drastic measures to get back their good luck charm.

Review:

Plot/Summary: I thought that the first scene when Murray is meeting with Vance was a little exaggerated, but that was okay since it made the episode more exiting.

  It really freaked me out when Ryan ran into the theater and yelled, "Princess Baba is really the twin of Prince Jessup." (or however you spell that) I thought that he said Prince Jessa and although I was thrilled to hear my name on AIO I didn't like that it was referred to as a boy name. I have never heard of anyone else named Jessa Much less a boy. So I had to listen to that part over and over again until I heard Vance say Jessup (or at least I hope that is what it was). And my brother agreed with me.

  Please comment and tell me what you think he said.

Characters/Acting: I am really surprised that I haven't heard anyone mentioning that Pete is played by Robin Knight (Seth Young). This drove me crazy the whole episode. Even though Seth wasn't a main character he was in four episodes it really bothered me.

  I also didn't like the acting of Brad when he follows Pete and says really loud and over the top, "Did you make the exchange!" If he was wondering if he made the exchange I would think that he would whisper it or something.

  And the voices of the other players behind Brad sounded more like adults instead of kids in middle school.

  I was really glad to see Ryan and Coach Fang back. And I couldn't help but notice that Vance was voiced by a different actor.

Humor: I loved the appearance of Coach Fang. I love his poetic stuff that always relates to nature. Especially when he said, "Be shot through the hoop yourself. Be the hoop. Be the scoreboard increasing by two when you shoot yourself through yourself.

Lesson: The lesson that God is the only on that has power was very spiritual.

  

Overall loved it except for a few flaws in the acting, and the misuse of my name (if it was used at all). I will give it a 8.5/10.

Behind the scenes

  Behind the Scenes: The Buck Starts Here

  "The original title, "The Parable of the Entrepreneur, the Sock Shooter, and the Ditch-Digger," had to be changed because the long name wouldn't fit on the cassette-tape labels."

-The Official Guide p.340

 In my opinion this would be a much cooler title. Now I am off to Nevada city for the weekend!!

Review: Opposite Day

Opposite Day

Summary:

Odyssey Middle School's “Opposite Day” inspires Olivia Parker to become friends with a girl who is nothing like her.

Meanwhile, Barrett Jones becomes obsessed with getting as many online friends as possible.

Review:

  Plot/Writing: This episode did not quite keep my entertainment level. I was surprised about this because it was written by Kathy Buchanan who is one of my favorite writers. But that didn't bother me very much at all.

Humor: I thought that Wooton was disappointingly not very funny. Not much to say about the humor because there wasn't much.

Characters/Acting: The biggest shock and disappointment in the acting was of course Barrett's voice. Just when I was getting over his really bad performance in, "Game for a Mystery."

  The voice's of all the girl characters confused me the first time I listened to the episode. And of course Amber's Laugh got on my nerves the first time I heard it.

  Does anyone know who Georgina Cordova played? In the end Chris said her name in the credits but I couldn't figure out who she was.

Lesson: Club Kid Chat was obviously code for Facebook. And while you shouldn't spend too much time on it especially when you are Barrett's age, your Facebook friends are also your real friends not just random people. I thought that both of the lessons were pretty good.

  Most people have said that they did not like this episode at all! My thoughts are more neutral. It was by far not my favorite episode of the season, but I didn't hate it so I would give it a 2/5.

Fact Friday

Every Friday (as long as I can remember to do it) I will be posting a fact that I think is interesting from "The Official Guide." Here is the first one...
  Sound Bites: "When we were recording 'The Life of the Party,'we accidentally misquoted the bible by having a character say, 'What you reap you shall also sow.' With careful editing, the sound designers fixed the line to it's correct rendering, 'What you sow, you shall also reap.' When you listen to this episode see if you can tell."

-The Official Guide p.71

Interview with Writer Kathy Buchanan

  The official podcast #107 came out today! Writer Kathy Buchanan talkes about the episode that she wrote, "Opposite Day."

  She also answers the ever present question, is Mitch coming back? No, he isn't coming back! But I am happy about that because I think that it would not live up to the listeners expectations. And besides have you ever thought about how weird Connie Mitchell sounds!

Review: Fast as I Can

Fast as I can

Summary:

Wooton Bassett, Eugene Meltsner, Connie Kendall, and Matthew Parker try to apply the discipline of fasting and, through their comedic antics, realize that it’s far more difficult than they imagined.

Review:

  Plot/writing: I was glad to see that this episode was written by  some of our old friends, Paul McCusker and Marshal Younger. I think that it balanced all of the newness with a wonderfully written episode!

Humor: I thought that a few scenes in this episode were especially funny. Like the one where they are telling what there fasts are about. I loved it when Wooton said, "I know you are fasting wearing every color but green." Or Matthew saying,"I e-mailed her that I thought she was wrong but she wouldn't let it go."

Acting/Characters: I was very glad to see that Mrs. Randolph was back. It gave the scenes with Wooton in it a very old feel.

Lesson: I really connected with this lesson because while I haven't ever fasted eating food I have fasted from listening to AIO, going on AIO websites or reading the official guide for a whole week. I didn't even talk about it and discus all of my thoughts and theories with my mom or cousin as they did their best to listen. It was ironically inspired by the episode, "The Meaning of Sacrifice."
 
  This was very hard for me especially because it was in the summer and in the summer AIO is all I do. I draw Odyssey characters, I even take notes on a piece of paper about an album. I research that album and put the piece of paper in the album so then when I open the album I can read facts about is! And every night I fall asleep with AIO playing (I take it everywhere even backpacking). I had trouble going to sleep the whole week! But it did get me to focus on other things beside Odyssey and I had time for other things.

  So I thought that this episode had a lesson that I was able to apply to my life because while I don't want to fast from food I can fast from something else. And Matthews fast probably applies to everyone who has an AIO blog.

Over all I think that "Fast As I Can" deserves 5/5 stars!