To the Small Screen

So the end of summer and this means that some of my tv shows are ending or have already ended which is kinda sad. Summer tv shows are always more intense cause they have a short time to get everything done. Sorta like the first season of Scandal. But with the end of tv shows comes the season finale which is always highly anticipated so lets get into it. 

Firstly there's Pretty Little Liars. It's in its sixth season and we finally just found out who 'A' is and everything is supposed to make sense now, except that it doesn't. With Charles/Cece as 'A' we're supposed to believe that she picked up the A game from Mona when she went to Radley so everything that happened pre Mona in Radley was not Cece, right? Which means that Cece would have been 'A' since season 3 which makes me wonder about how she found out about all the things that go on at the high school. Mona had an excuse since she actually went to school there but how did Cece find out everything and Sarah didn't go to school there so she couldn't have found out either. Then you have to wonder how she was able to go out so often and for so long from Radley without raising any flags. And what about when her privileges were taken away? And what was her problem with the girls in the first place. In the whole explanation she had her problem was with her parents but she hardly spoke about how all of this had to do with the other girls. Some of it doesn't make sense and then we have to wonder about their flash forward at the end. Whose last name does Ali have now? And who is coming after her now? I also wonder about Spencer's hair. It's look a little strange for about a season or so, like a wig. Her hair in the earlier seasons looked really long and silky so idk what they changed about it. 

Next is Teen Wolf. It hasn't had its season finale yet so there's still hope for it but it's losing me a little. For a group of teens that are supposed to be a pack they sure keep a lot of secrets. Malia won't tell Stiles what she found out about her Mom and Stiles won't tell Scott about Donovan pushing him to trust Theo which we all know is a bad idea. And look how Scott not telling Kira about her aura turned out. I'm just waiting to see how this thing with Theo turns out and if he's going to turn on the Dred Doctors. 

So You Think You Can Dance has let me down a little this season with their new format. I'm also starting to miss seeing solos more which they got to do when they had two nights instead of one. That double elimination last week really upset me cause a lot of my favs went home. I really liked Kate and Alexia and Yorelis so I was kind of upset. I have no idea who I want to win now but I really like Hailee and I did like Edson before he went home. That dance that Edson did was sooooo breathtaking and beautiful. I was hoping he wouldn't go home to see what he would do next week but oh well. Oh and Gaby doing that hip hop was the BOMB!! The song and the choreography came together sooooo well and she was surprisingly good in it. 

I think I'm going to take a break from bad/ratchet reality tv like the Housewives of wherever and the Bad Girls Club cause it's not so funny anymore. That means I have more time to read and work on my own writing. I'm trying to find a new trigger to write other than being upset and sad which worked like a charm when I was younger. 

Anyways, I have to go finish my breakfast and get ready for Nick coming in tomorrow!! :) I still don't know what we're gonna be doing but I'm sure I'll figure it out. 

Baaaiiiii!!

From the Big Screen

So I've been putting off this post for a while for a couple reasons. For one, last week I had to make a quick trip to Jersey to stay with my cousins so I didn't really have time to write anything even though I had all intentions of doing a post there. Secondly, I still wasn't sure I wanted to do an entire post about movies. And then a whole week went by and I still hadn't written anything so I'm just gonna tell you about all the movies I've been watching. 

A couple weeks ago I watched The Judge. I had always planned on watching this but I never got around to it so the fact that it showed on tv was a plus. The story for this movie is really good and well thought out. Even though it starts off at a point that is a bit vague, the fact that it doesn't keep referring to it doesn't make it so bad. Of course by the end of the film I was in tears. I've come to realized I'm a bit of a crier in movies and everyone has now come to expect it. The acting was also superb in this, not just Robert Downey Jr. but the other cast as well. It really explores the relationships between family members and how the perception of others can affect your own actions and how you think of people. The father (The Judge) didn't want anyone to know he was sick because of the position he held in the community which affected how he treated others. The son didn't want his father to know how affected he was by the way his father treated him so he never let his daughter meet him which more affected her since she thought her grandfather was dead. It was just an interesting movie and story line. 

I finally watched Insurgent which I've been waiting to watch since I went to Dallas with Nick in March. Since I read the books a couple years ago I was going into it only remembering some of the stuff so I was still happy with it. I know a lot of people said it wasn't that great but it gave a lot of back story for the world that she created. It showed how even though people still supported their faction, not everyone was happy with how things were handled. Amity for instance didn't like the power and control Erudite showed over all the others. It wasn't filled with action but the action there was was still good. There's always that one movie in a series that lets everyone down. 

Next on my list was The Gunman which was just a movie full of fighting and shooting. Yes there was a plot but not a very deep one. I didn't like it that much and I only watched it because it was on my list of movies to watch.

I don't know why it took me this long to watch Home. Oh wait I do know, school. Home has been on my list since it came out but I never got the chance to watch it. I must say that I thought Rihanna did a good job it it. I heard the Bajan accent come out a couple times which made me laugh but overall you couldn't really tell. The plot was really well thought out and the script was also well written. The ending sort of reminded me of Megamind with the starfish thing in a mechanical suit. It was still a good movie. 

Last but not least, I watched Furious 7. This was a movie I've been putting off watching on purpose. From the time Paul Walker died I knew I was going to cry while watching this. Then the soundtrack came out and that made me sad every time it played. Now watching the movie, whenever he came on the screen I got sad. I kept looking for signs of CGI for when his brothers helped fill in but I never saw anything. So I'll just say, I LOVED THIS MOVIE! In a way I don't like how it's all becoming about heists and moving away from  the racing that started it all but I guess people don't mind since it did so well at the box office. Maybe the next one will go back to its roots and be pure driving. As much press as The Rock did I was surprised how little he did in the movie. 

I watched a couple other movies but these were the main ones that stood out to me. Next on my list is Pitch Perfect 2 and I started to watch Paul Blart 2 but I can't seem to get through it. I'll try again later today. 

Anyways, I'm off to create a new adventure or something.  I'm watching the Superman from 2006 while writing this and I forgot how much this movie kind of sucked. It's like they had all the right actors and pieces but none of it worked. For one the S on his chest is too small. 

Laterz!

Changing Things Up a Little

I decided to make this post a little different. I’ve been on vacation for about a month now and it feels weird not learning new things anymore so I’ve decided to do my own learning through some market research and analysis.

I know there have been a lot of articles about this but I figured I could give my own take on it as a start to these types of posts. I made this observation a couple months ago when doing research for a class but I never really got to go in depth with it since it wasn’t the topic of my research but now I can. The question is, Why does the price of Apple stocks decrease whenever they have an announcement of new products or an announcement of an announcement?

My theory is that consumers are somewhat satisfied with what they have, some of it not being a year old yet, and are unsure of what it could be that could improve what they already have. Sort of like fear of the unknown. It’s only after the announcements or media event has finished that the stock recovers from the anticipation of consumers. Another questions is what happens to Apple’s competitors, such as Microsoft, when their stocks have fluctuations? In theory there should also be fluctuations since they are direct competitors and it could mean that if investors are selling Apple they are putting their money somewhere else, like Microsoft. So here’s the proof. All my charts are from yahoo finance and I just cross referenced the dates of the media events from Wikipedia. 

Ok so Apple had a media event on June 10th to the 14th in 2013 where they showed the redesign of the Mac Pro, the AirPort Time Capsule and the AirPort Extreme and the updated MacBook Air. They also showed the operating system Mavericks, IOS7, and some other stuff including iTunes Radio. Big stuff. But as you can see in the chart, the stock price went down the day of the beginning of the event. Maybe people weren't so sure that they needed all these changes. 

Their next event was on September 10 of that year.

This time the stock price started to dip from the 2nd of September. Not a good sign. If the dip in stock price was happening just over a week before the event investors and consumers were clearly not that happy in the direction Apple was heading. The anticipation was not high for the new products and the speculation and doubt took over. This continues for a couple more of their media events and I think they've come to expect it but as you see they've always recovered from it. In my opinion right before an announcement or media event would be the best time for an investor to buy some Apple shares. In some cases the dip in stock price starts days before and sometimes it only starts the day of, once the event starts. Regardless, there's always a rally afterwards which means some quick returns for those who invest at the right time. Now it can be said that its is momentum pushing the stock price of Apple up. There are little dips here and there but there is a clear upward trend. That but increase in stock price at the beginning of 2015 may be attributed to anticipation of the iPhone 6 that was announced in September 2014 or just simply Christmas rush. 

So what about Microsoft?

Contradicting theory, Microsoft also had a dip in stock price in June 2013. This could mean that investors were just not comfortable investing in Apple at the time and left those funds in cash and didn't reinvest or they just invested in something else.

Their movements for the September event were more text book.

In September 2013 they had a somewhat large boost following the Apple announcement. This was the announcement where Apple introduced the iPhone 5c and 5s (Some may call them the 5Cheap and the 5Same). Investors were clearly not happy with this announcement and decided to invest in something else. Microsoft. 

There could be other reasons for the shifts in Microsoft's stock price but seeing as Microsoft doesn't have those large media events that Apple does I'm assuming the events are related. Another option is to look at E3 events to see if they affect the shift in Microsoft's stock price since the XBox is a large division for Microsoft. And with the release of Windows 10 last week then that would also affect Microsoft's stock prices. There are endless possibilities. 

So yea. That's about it. I'll probably do a couple of these just to stay on top of things so I don't lose everything I learnt in my Masters.

Bye! xo