A to Z - Ving and Volva + First Fight/Kiss Blogfest

First off – Yesterday Jackie @ Bouquet of Books and myself unveiled our NEW FIRST FIGHT / FIRST KISS Blogfest. For details click here, or just click on the button in the top left sidebar.

There are prizes of course but not only that… it’ll be tons of fun!

I can’t wait to read everyone’s fictional or non-fictional firsts.

Now on to my regular schedule program A to Z…

Ving Rhames (Irving Rameses Rhames)

Rhames was born in New York City, New York, the son of Reather, a homemaker, and Ernest Rhames, an auto mechanic. His parents were raised as sharecroppers in South Carolina. Named after the late NBC journalist, Irving R. Levine, Irving Rhames grew up in Harlem. He entered New York's High School of Performing Arts, where he discovered his love of acting. After high school, he studied drama at SUNY Purchase, where fellow acting student Stanley Tucci gave him his nickname "Ving". Rhames later transferred to the Juilliard School's Drama Division (Group 12: 1979-1983) where he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1983.

Ving is my zombie feature because he apparently loves zombies. Staring in Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Zombie Apocalypse and anything else I don’t know about. But on top of it all – I just love him. He plays some of the best parts.

The Village

An end-of-the-19th-century village whose inhabitants live in fear of the creatures inhabiting the woods beyond it.  The occupants of a small village live in fear of nameless creatures in the surrounding woods. They have built a barrier of oil lanterns and watch towers that are constantly manned to keep watch for "Those We Don't Speak Of." It is explained that the villagers have a long-standing truce with the monsters; the villagers do not go into their woods, and the creatures do not enter their village. The villagers execute a well-rehearsed alarm, in which they rush home, lock their doors and hide in their cellars. The dead, skinned bodies of small animals start to appear around the village. After the funeral of a seven year old boy, Lucius Hunt asks the village elders for permission to pass through the woods to get medical supplies from "the towns".  So who do they send? Ivy, the blind daughter of the Chief Elder. However they don’t send her until her beau, Lucius, is stabbed by village nutcase Noah. Come to find out the creatures in the woods are a – well I’m not going to give it away for those of you that haven’t seen it. You need to watch it yourself.

The movie got many reviews from horrible to brilliant. You watch and make your own decision. I loved it!

Vampire Academy

It tells the story of Rose Hathaway, a seventeen-year-old Dhampir girl, who is training to be a bodyguard for her Moroi best friend, Vasilisa "Lissa" Dragomir. In the process of learning how to defeat Strigoi (the evil undead vampires) in St. Vladimir's Academy, Rose finds herself caught in a forbidden romance with her instructor, Dimitri Belikov, while having an unbreakable bond with Lissa.

Dimitri *sigh, wipes drool from mouth*

Viktor Krum

A Seeker for the Bulgarian national Quidditch team who has entered the International Quidditch League at an early age. Many wizards of his time consider him a prodigy. He has bushy eyebrows and a hooked nose, which he inherited from his father. He is also described as being well coordinated on a broom but slightly unbalanced on land. Despite his success and fame, Krum appeared to be unhappy and lonely, and was further characterised as being very quiet and reserved, though Hermione says he is a genuinely nice person beneath the sullen exterior. Krum is named Durmstrang champion upon entering his name for the prestigious Triwizard Tournament. He is often viewed with suspicion by his peers due to Durmstrang's reputation for teaching the Dark Arts, while looked upon with admiration for his feats, mainly by giggling Hogwarts girls.

Völva

A shamanic seeress in Norse paganism, and a recurring motif in Norse mythology. Völur practiced seiðr, spá and galdr, practices which encompassed shamanism, sorcery, prophecy and other forms of indigenous magic. Seiðr in particular had connotations of ergi. The völur were not considered to be harmless. The goddess who was most skilled in magic was Freyja, and she was not only a goddess of love, but also a warlike divinity who caused screams of anguish, blood and death, and what Freyja performed in Asgard, the world of the gods, the völur tried to perform in Midgard, the world of men. The weapon of the völva was not the spear, the axe or the sword but instead they were held to influence battles with different means, and one of them was the wand.