ANATOMY OF A BOYFRIEND , r A NOVEL BY DARIA NADOWSRY Book Review Book- Anatomy of a Boyfriend Mie Daria Spesansy = Year - 2007 Aaatonie of an Extra- Medium Teen Novel TASATHA LUNDHOLM Arts Epiror As far as sappy teenage books about falling in love and getting dumped go, this one’s fairly well written. Daria Snadowsky’s first novel Anatomy of a Boyfriend covers the feelings of being a shy virginal high school student, who finally finds “Mr. Right” (or so she thinks), and hilarity ensues. | found myself laughing out loud at various moments throughout the book, but the humour didn’t quite make up for the topic of being a kid in love. We’ve all read about it, we’ve all watched it on TV or at the movies, and most of us have been there; so why is it still so popular? Maybe because it is a topic that most of us can relate to or understand. This book is fairly medium. Extra medium. It’s a medium length, a medium quality of writing, and a medium topic. But don’t get me wrong, | still enjoyed it quite a bit. It’s just one of those little quickies of a book that take you about two days of semi-commited reading to get through. It is fairly enjoyable and you walk away from it feeling alright. Not dirty or guilty like | usually do after reading a teenage romance book like this. Anyway, as a first novel this is a solid start. And if you want to break into the teen novel market, teenage love is a good place to begin. It doesn’t have the sappy overly girly feel of a Judy Blume, but it also doesn’t carry the weight and intensity of a Laurie Halse Anderson novel. My favourite gem of a line was when the main character, Domi- nique, is about to fool around for the first time with her boyfriend, Wes, in his car: “I feel dizzy and light-headed, like every cell in my body is pushing my atm that final inch. I’m just about to rest my hand on his crotch when a thunderous bang echoes through the car. Did he just ejaculate?” If you want a book that you can just sort of cozy down with for a day or two, then | suggest picking up this light read. But if you like your novels with a little more maturity, go get a Mar- garet Atwood. _ ies and sucked many people } both play style and story. HaaAKon Suitivan DISTRIBUTION AND ADS MANAGER When someone mentions the strat- egy genre, a good number of gamers would have the series name “Com- mand and Conquer” come to mind. This is because a past company, Westwood Studios, created this ser- into the world of strategy gaming with its challen- ging missions, cool units, and awesome cutscenes. [ The series quickly changed § when EA bought the com- pany, dissolved it, and had the next game in the ser- ies (“Generals”) be noth- | ing like the last games in It seems that they have learned their lesson and have now come out with a game that comes so close to keeping the Command and Conquer tradition. Command and Conquer 3 is set in what C&C fans call the “Tiberium | Universe”. A strange, alien plant- like substance, called tiberium, has landed on the Earth and spreads - like wildfire, releasing dangerous chemicals into ‘the air and killing people who come near it. During its spread, a strange new cult, called the Brotherhood of Nod, suddenly ap- pears. Preaching that the next step of human evolution is near, they began to take over the world triggering the first tiberium war. The free world then banded together a force called the Global Defense Initiative to fight them off. Tiberium Wars takes place during the third tibertum war when the planet is mostly covered in tiberium and fighting over the last few uncontaminated spaces is com- mon. ; OVER THE EDGE September 12-26, 2007 a I didn’t find the missions that go through the third tiberium war as challenging as the other Command and Conquer games, but EA did go out of their way to have the player immersed in the storyline by having cutscenes with Hollywood actors and having them give you orders directly. For example, when you are watching a cutscene in the Nod campaign the leader Kane will urge you to press a button which will re- lease mass destruction. The graphics and sound in the game is amazing. You can see the shadows of the towering. Scrin walkers and hear the blasts of the GDI Mammoth tanks so well that it feels like you’re watching live feed of the battle at hand. The battlefield maps are also well rendered, giving you the feel that you really are in London or in Washington DC. There are three teams to the game and one of them is a new additon to the series called the Scrin, an alien species somehow connected to the tiberium. Between the three teams, each of the teams have their own unique strategies and all are bal- anced with each other. When you play the game, you will see that EA has brought back the old side- bar system where you find your building options on a sidebar of the screen. There are also powers that each team has such as artillery strikes,. cloaking fields, and buzzer swarms that each team can use to gain an edge over the other. One of my favourite tactics I use with GDI is paralysing the enemy base with shockwave artillery and drop troops in with drop pods all the while as- saulting them with tanks. When the campaign is done, online or skirmish play is the way to go. Skirmish play features many kinds 4 of AI types (such as “‘Bal- 4 anced” and “Steamroller” among others) to keep the a play interesting. Watch out for the “Scrin Turtle” though...he’ll beat you to a ms pulp if you leave him alone | m long enough! Online play would be awesome if EA didn’t always botch up its patches. They try to solve balance and cheating problems with each patch, but it always ends up creating more. Take the latest patch (1.08) for example. It was to fix a problem that involved having a superweapon constantly fire (a problem caused by the last patch) destroying the oppon- ent’s base easily. They released the patch but few people could down- load it for a period of time due to an overloaded server and a messed up auto patcher. All in all, Command and Con- quer 3 will have you dreaming At- tack Bikes and Ion Cannons in your sleep, a clear indication that they have matched the past Command and Conquer games. If you are in- terested in playing online be aware that EA is trying to make this game like a full fledged sport meaning that they now have an internet show dedicated to the game. Play a good game and you may just have your face on it. Friday Night at the Movies AmBeR RicHarps CONTRIBUTER Let’s go way back to when Mr. Bean came out in the ‘90s. We remember Mr. Bean for his one word phrases like eae later mov- ing on to “excuse me” We also remember him for play- ing with the nativity scene at church and somehow bringing dinosaurs into it. Mr. Bean is a classic person who makes you laugh. The funny thing is, he is not really trying to tell you in words, but in his expressions instead. For example, trying to make a sand- wich in the park and taking a few items from his sock and from his jacket. Well, in this movie, it is the same ole Mr. Bean but in French. This movie is based on Mr. Bean winning a trip to France and trying to catch a train to and Cannes. Movie Review Movie - Mr. Bean’s Holiday Starring - Rowan Atkinson Rating - 3/5 Beans On his way, he meets a really pretty lady and a boy (not related) with ‘his same ole Mr. Bean classics close at his side. He forgets his wallet at a train stop and he also loses his camera. When Mr. Bean gets on one of his trains, he gets a snack and it is fol- lowed close by “si” although the per- son at the counter was saying “thank you and you’re welcome” in French. The one thing that I did not like about this movie is the subtitles. Yes, I know it is in French but I wish I was warned before I saw the film. The last movie I saw that had sub- titles like that was “Run Lola Run”. Yes, that was a good movie but no one likes to read during a film. This movie was entertaining: and did make me laugh along the | way. I give this movie a 3 out of 5 “beans”.