Things I Found On My Camera: A Historical Journey!
Edit: I'm sorry that this was the image that youtube grabbed to promote the video. It was not a conscious decision on my part.
So funny story. I just assumed that my macbook had imovie. Well I'm new to this whole apple computer thing and it turns out I have to buy it. So efff that esss.
Went to Waterman. They only have imovie HD which has an entire different setup then imovie. My previously saved files wouldn't upload so I had to start another. I couldn't even flip my photos around. So here is what I did in imovie HD and I hope to get imovie soon so I can do it better.
Now about my movie. I have no real direction but I'm focusing on my need to preserve my life. I do this through a camera sometimes. So I went through all the saved files on my camera and pulled out some significant photos. The only problem is I don't know how to end it. I don't really know enough about myself to analyze my life anyway. I think I might keep running with this idea of focusing on my scary obsession with never losing past events or information. I could explore how this obsession sometimes keeps me stuck in the past rather then focusing on the future. But maybe I'll scrap the whole thing and do something else.
So we have to post the beginnings of our digital story. Let me first and foremost apologize. I had absolutly no idea the direction I was going with this. Really, none whatsoever. One day for class we just needed 10 pictures, so I got ten arbitrary pictures with little correlation to one another. Then we needed to make a story, so I kind of just threw this together. It is, of course, sans a voice over, but it does have some preliminary sound effects and fun transitions. So let your imaginations run wild over what this story could be. Your guess is as good as mine.
This is a quick post to try and turn you guys on to something that is very, very cool.
It is a musical written by Joss Whedon, of Buffy the Vampire and Firefly fame, during the writer's strike as a side project. It stars Neil Patrick Harris, of Harold and Kumar and Doogie Howser fame. Not into musicals? Don't worry this one breaks the mold and isn't anything like Rent or Sound of Music
The best part of the package is that the damn thing is free to watch. I implore you to give it a chance. It is 45 minutes in total but is broken up into three 13-ish minute acts. The first 3 minutes are a little slow but it picks up in a strong way and really rewards a full viewing; if not multiple.
I would like to assume the role of a professor at this fine university and give you all a crash course on Brology, the study of Bros. Course Goals: College campuses are teeming with these bros. Currently I live among them studying their habits. Perhaps some of you do as well. By the end of this course I hope that you are able to identify a bro in everyday life and to do with that information what you wish. Instructor's Note: This is a semi-lengthy read but with valuable info. Go at your own pace or simply drop out now. Or just enjoy the videos. Required Viewing:
Bro Rape: A Newsline Investigative Report (Perhaps Not Very Appropriate: This is Your Warning!)
Let's start by defining some terms. What is a bro exactly? Well a bro is commonly a white male between the ages of 18-26. Bro Culture is often associated with an affinity to party and a very strong sense of brotherhood. That is why most bros will be found in or around frat houses. An important distinction to make is that not all bros belong to fraternities.
How to Identify a Bro:
Bros are characterized by wearing their hat backwards, popping their collars, driving jacked-up trucks, and often they like to scream about getting shwasted or laid.
Let us now look at visual documentation of the bro to further help you in your identification.
Potential Dangers: Now a bro may sound harmless, and for the most part they are. But there are a few things you might want to look out for. Bros are often times annoying. They are the people who will wake you up at 2 in the morning, on a school night, screaming down the staircase to their bros three floors below. They are simple creatures following a few basic instincts (getting belligerently drunk and rubbing their genitalia against everything.) If you are not one of their bros and you wind up between them and their goals you run the risk of coming into serious harm.
Pros?: Not everything about a bro is terrible. Perhaps using knowledge learned in this course you will choose to seek out a bro and befriend him. They are an excellent contact in finding raging parties and you may want to take advantage of that. But a warning is to be had here. If you act too friendly you run the risk of taking on traits of the bro until one day you finally become one. Glossary of Terms:
Dude-Bros have taken on a second way of identifying someone they are talking to. Often this term is used to talk to someone who isn't their bro.
Chill-A secondary drive of the bro. Bros constantly want to chill and will seek the path of least resistance to do so. They will often say this word to calm a situation that is rising in tension.
High-Five- This is a gesture bros practice with other bros. They often will slap palms together in celebration of something particularity exciting.
"Pound that shit"- Much like the high-five sometimes a bro will ask another bro to "Pound it." This is seen as two fists making contact on the knuckles. This is used only in special occasions like getting laid or scoring weed.
Wingman- When a bro goes clubbing they often bring a second bro with them for assistance. Often a bro will find a hot girl who has a less attractive friend with her. The wingman's duty is to engage and occupy the ugly friend so his bro can score with the hottie. It is a complicated procedure filled with difficult rules of right of way. Much like fencing.
"Shit was so cash"- A common way a bro will describe something. For example: "Hey Johnny did you see Bill kill that keg?" "Yeah shit was so cash."
Bros in Popular Culture:
In 2007 at the University of Florida Andrew Meyer, a senior at the college, attended a forum featuring current U.S Senator and former presidential hopeful John Kerry. Meyer never really asked a question but instead begin to indite Kerry thus breaking the forum proceedings. He began to be escorted by security but resisted quite strongly. The threat of force was made and Meyer freaked out. He then uttered the infamous "Don't tase me, bro!" This incident brings up questions of liberties and freedoms in America and whether or not Meyer's were breached. However, it is commonly accepted that he deserved whatever was coming to him for saying bro.
Many believe that in 2008 the primary reasoning behind electing Obama over Hillary Clinton as the Democratic Nominee was what the bros call "Bros before Hos."
I hope you have learned enough about bros in order to identify their behavior and appearance. This may prove to be an invaluable skill later in life. Remember that your homework is to read chapter 5 in Spielvogel's Western Tribes. Next class we will be discussing hipsters. Thanks for reading.
Alright, so it seems to me I have been lacking in quality blog posts. After the first vote I was seeing all these "Royale with Cheese" votes and I was thinking to myself "Man, I haven't done anything substantial for this blog and we are still winning" (I think, I didn't tally up the votes. For the sake of argument lets assume we are). So after thinking for a bit I could potentially be a total freeloader and just reap the rewards of my partners awesome blog posts, I decided I would just have to create an equally fun and amusing post. So here we go.
So far we have covered the spectrum of our old favorite movies, and our old (or, that is, apparently still current) favorite music, so what do we have left? Old TV shows of course! Who doesn't love to reminisce about shows of old. Or the 90's in this case. Here are some of my favorites in no particular order. There are a lot, so I comment more on some than others.
Recess I always wanted my school to be like that. I wanted to be TJ Detweiler. To pull the kind of stuff he did and walk away trouble free was amazing to me. I wondered why my school wasn't run by a quasi-monarchical 5th grader. Then I remembered, because we didn't have 5 story fortresses and secret underground tire lairs at our disposal. That's why.
Captain Planet
Protecting the environment has never been so cool. With his flat-topped mullet-esque hair thing going on, I would listen to that man when he talked. Even if the criminal masterminds he fought were a little odd, (all they wanted was to ruin the environment, not power or to rule the world...) they were still scary enough looking to warrant me getting pumped up when Captain Planet fought them. Also, it's been said hundreds of times, but it's worth repeating, what the hell does heart do? No one cares about heart, and it is a stupid useless power. "Instill love and passion into people and communicate telepathically with animals" was technically what it did, which is really just a case in point for it being a stupid useless power.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Possibly one of the coolest crime fighting teams ever. With their hip jargon like "Dude" and "whoa brahhhh" and "Pizza!" they really knew how to connect with the kids of the time. They loved to party, eat, hang out with some hot broad, learn from a giant rat, and occasionally destroyed enemies using karate and swords and what not. It really hard to top them in terms of being bad ass. This itself proves it:
You're a turkey man, a total turkey.
Pokemon
No one will admit they watched it. But everyone did. You know it. You even won't admit to yourself you know the original 150 pokemon (when it got into the like 400-500 range you knew that was bs). But seriously, if one of your friends little brothers was playing and asked you what pokemon something was, you would totally play it off like you had no idea. But you knew. You always knew that was an eevee and it evolved with 4 different stones. But now that built up knowledge of every pokemon and every secret in the first couple if game boy games is now totally useless. Oh well.
Doug
A classic. I think it was partially because we all knew we were cooler than Doug. Let's face it, Porkchop was much cooler. Doug was a nice guy and all, but kind of a wimp, and generally unlucky. For example, to my knowledge he never got with Patty Mayonaise and he in fact collapsed her house once throwing stones at it. Poor lovesick guy. He also wore a sweatervest in like the 5th grade. At least he had awesome alter-egos like Quailman. I always wondered if i was supposed to catch some sort of subtle racial undertone with all the characters being drastically different colors, but none of them black. I always wondered if there was some meaning to all that, or if the animators just felt like messing around. I'll probably never know.
Transformers
I watched them before the movie. I even saw the original movie. 1986 cartoon movie. I'm glad liking Transformers became cool again when Megan Fox is involved, because now I can wear my autobots shirt and not get laughed at. Much.
Saved by the Bell
If we were cool and lived in California, our lives would be like the kids from Saved by the Bell. The kids could do no wrong, Zack was wicked cool, AC Slater (along with having a sick name) was wicked jacked, Kelly was pretty, Jessie was like the president of everything, Lisa was a hip fashion designer, and Screech was a genius. Add them all together and you get a dream team for mayhem and mischeif and learning valuble life lessons. One of my favorite life lessons was don't take pills that make you stay awake, or you literally go insane. Check it out:
Best part is I believe those were caffine pills. Aren't those legal?
Cliff Notes Version of the rest because this is getting long:
Whose Line is it Anyway-I think it spanned into the 2000's, but its worth mentioning since it was one of the best sketch comedy shows ever. Power Rangers-Nothing is funnier than dubbed over Japanese shows with over exaggerated fighting moves. Sonic-Guy was wicked fast and had a pal Tails who could fly. Fun fact: Voiced by Steve Urkel. Alvin and the Chipmunks- Set tempo to "fast" and have fun. Rugrats-Way too smart to be normal babies. Why could Angelica hear both them an adults? Full House- Mary Kate and Ashley play one person. John Stamos is the man. Bill Nye-I learned a lot and it had a sweet theme song. Fresh Prince of Bell-Air-Now this is a story all about how... Rocket Power-Kids could do every extreme sport imaginable, but couldn't figure out how to deal with real life issues, like school. Biker Mice from Mars-Bonus points if you even know this one...
Yep, that's it. Don't think I missed any. And as the title suggests, I do titles last and I couldn't think of something clever enough. So that explains that.
Laugh if you must but I am a fan of Barry Manilow. Affectionately deemed a "Fanilow." Many would have you think Barry Manilow is terrible. But I'm throwing off the shackles of tyranny. I'm afraid no longer. I will shout it from the hills, rooftops, and water tower. I love Manilow. It may be because I'm actually a middle aged housewife. Or perhaps it is because I like terrible music. But don't you judge me. You haven't been there. His lyrics speak to me. Straight to my heart. They picked me up from my lowest point and straightened my life out. I dare say it made me a better person. Where were you the first time you heard "Copacobana"? Didn't it rock you to your core? No, probably not. Have you ever been in love with a girl named Mandy just to put the song "Mandy" on loop for three days? He writes the songs that make the whole world sing, people. Who else could possibly make such a claim and be 100% correct? So next time you hear the Manilow belting one out. Stop and think. Hey, there is at least one person who likes this.
Or you could listen to something cool like Led Zeppelin or Queen, I guess.
So let's talk about movies we watched as children. I bring this up because recently I had a weird urge to watch Babe again. So I went about legally *ahemcough* acquiring a copy online for my viewing pleasure. I really just wanted to see the scene where the old farmer sings and dances to make the pig feel better, it brings a tear to my eye every time.
Re-watching Babe opened the metaphoric floodgates for me to go on a crusade to rediscover lost gems of my childhood. So now I present to you a short list of great childhood movies. A criterion if you will.
I don't actually expect people to read beyond this point so for the hell of it you can view most of these movies for free and legally (I think) on youtube.
FernGully:
FernGully was a movie released in 1992 with a not so hidden environmental protection message. Though it is obvious now, the message was either lost on me as a child or was subconsciously woven into my being. Perhaps I was just too busy being terrified by Tim Curry voicing a toxic pile of sludge. Shit was creepy. Honestly this movie didn't hold up too well, however, it starred Robin Williams as a lab tested bat...named Batty and Tim Curry is still scary as hell
All Dogs go to Heaven:
Ahh Don Bluth made some classic movies. He was Disney's main rival at the time and I feel most of his movies are darker, more cynical, and closer to the world then singing mermaids. I'm not saying talking dogs are closer to real life, I'm just saying he introduced the theme of death and the afterlife to kids. I'm not sure if that is some sort of moral high ground or low ground but nonetheless it starred Burt Reynolds and he attempted to sing. It is still really good even though the songs aren't nearly as catchy as what Disney was putting out.
Labyrinth:
This movie remains one of my favorite movies ever. It stars a young Jennifer Connelly and David Bowie's crotch. It has real people interacting with some of the best puppets Jim Henson ever crafted. I would say watch it because it is great. You remind me of the babe.
Rock-a-Doodle:
I would suggest watching all of Don Bluth's movies. He also did The Land Before Time, which may be more familiar, but this one is my favorites. I don't think Rock-a-Doodle is very well known but damn is it good. It starts with with a real boy getting turned into a cat. Weird, right? But there is the Grand Duke who is still terrifying to me now. It is hard to explain, and it may just be me, but the flow of everything mixed with a dark atmosphere just kinda clicked.
The Pagemaster:
Starring the talents of Christopher Lloyd, Whoopi Goldberg, Patrick Stuart, and Macaulay Culkin (when he was still marketable as a child actor.) It starts off in live action and moves to animation. The scene where this happens was pretty cool at the very least. It explores the adventure of reading which makes it topical to this class.
Every Disney Musical from 1989-Hercules: Too many to list here. The Hunchback of Notre Dame is my personal favorite.
This Criterion Collection can only be found on Royale with Cheese. By all means comment and add some great movies of your childhood.
"Breathin' in deep city breaths, sittin' on shitty steps We stoop to new lows, hell froze the night the city slept" -Talib Kweli
So I've been listening to a lot of New York rap and it's been making me pretty homesick. I miss the traffic, the noise, the hustle, but most importantly the bustle. I miss the dirty pavement, the filthy hobos and hookers, and the obvious crack deals that go down on street corners that the rich white man had graced not 3 hours prior. I miss the newsstands, the smoke shops with pipes for S's on the logo, the delis run by Middle Easterners, the delis run by Koreans, and the delis run by Mexicans (you can always tell which is which). I miss my stoop. I miss my block's stoops. Hell, I miss my enemies'stoops, my exes' stoops and any stoop I can get my ass on. I miss the village. I miss midtown. I miss giving tourists blatantly incoherent and even offensive directions (Empire State Building? (points to the Hudson) Walk that way. Don't stop until you get to New Jersey). I miss hating New England and every single suburb of the universe with my friends. I miss the illegal scribbles, and the illegal art. I miss the hot dog stands and the papaya hot dog chains. I miss the sirens, the horns, the pollution, the rudeness of everyone (which inevitably leads to human games of Frogger), and I never thought I'd say this, but I miss the cops.
Bring me home already, Thanksgiving.
P.S. I sprained my ankle Sunday while skateboarding and couldn't walk until I got my crutches late into yesterday. The X-rays came back negative, no broken bones, no fractures, so that's good news. I'll be accepting flowers, candy, and get well soon cards ASAP.
Blowfish was borderline giddy in her retelling of her favorite story, Home Movies: It was about a guy who's grandfather filmed home videos of their family as they spun around in the front yard, creating a sort of time lapse effect that showed how they'd grown over the years. As he watched his grandfather's videos he saw his mother, who divorced his father when he was a young child, and then eventually himself in his father's arms. He watched the videos with his father, and they compare their respective magnitudes of cuteness. He wonders what his father thinks; he knows that he's not the little boy that he once was, and he wonders if he has become everything that his father wanted him to be, being that he is, at the end of the story, a 30 year old Colorado Astronaut. My least favorite part was the abrupt ending, it seemed like there was more to the story. There wasn't much said about the Colorado Spaceman thing.
The following is a documentation of a real interview, that took place in real life, in real time. We had to write down as accurately as possible what our partner said. I think I got about 15% of what was actually said.
The person I interviewed was Kaleb. He talks a lot and it is rarely about anything good. The following is a transcript of the conversation.
Austin: Who are you? Kaleb: Kaleb (author's note: Don't be fooled about how short this answer was) A: What was your favorite video story-thing? K: Untitled by Nancy Palate or however she said her name. Make sure you write by Nancy Palate because there are two untitled. A: Yeah ok. Why did you like this? K: Really it was just the formatting. I like how the video clips were in the chest...the formatting was badass. IN the video she actually had videos in a video. A: What was your least favorite part? K: ummm.oh yeah the whole thing in the end with God and her being a light traveler. A: Summarize the video please. K: Okay basically there is a woman who moved a lot...I can't remember if she moved from Ecuador ...let me check...yeah she did...maybe. So she moved to the country and moved around the country. Make sure you write malcontent. She said when you move you have to unpack which takes about a month. And you never know what you have until you have to pack it. Packing is a bitch
It was a good talk for the most part. I'm feeling a bit under the weather so I can't comprehend most things at the moment, so I didn't catch everything he said. I am sure that is what this exercise was supposed to show; to illustrate a communication breakdown between what is said and what is written. At least that is what I hope was the case.
Oh by the way, Kaleb isn't very interesting but his blog can be found over here. I'm linking it mostly because you can find his interview with me which should prove to be much more entertaining.
Here, I interviewed Chelsea about her favorite Digital Storytelling video. Her personal favorite was one entitled "Limbo". She tells me how Limbo is about a girl in her mid 20's who loses her father at an early age to a terrible kidney disease. When she is in her twenties she gets a weird pain and starts to think she has come down with the same terrible kidney disease as her father. Despite her obvious distaste for doctors, she goes for treatment, even though she thinks she will only have about 15 more years to live. She keeps fighting though the disease to this day. Chelsea liked this story because the girl in the story never held anything back when she was talking about her disease. "Although it was sad, it was uplifting at the same time." says Chelsea, "It was very intense." What Chelsea did not like was the fact that the story was very depressing. She thought it was sad how someone would have to go through life with that disease, especially so young.
Chelsea also interviewed me, and if you are so inclined, you can find it here.
So my roommate decided that he's going to take a "mental health day." You may be wondering just what the hell this means. To him, this means that his agenda entails doing laundry, learning James Taylor songs on the guitar, and above all, not going to class. "My friend Risa said that it's a good idea!"
My other roommate and I are looking forward to having a large double room to ourselves, being that he has skipped over half his classes thus far. College for most people is the first time in your life that you are fully in charge of your decisions, but roommate number one has lived independently of his parents for some time now, and it doesn't seem to be showing. This is the complete opposite of what I came to expect during the first few days living with them, but this just goes to show that you can't always judge a book by its cover.
The blogging format is an interesting one in that it allows one to talk freely about anything they want. The author of Slice goes back and forth from expressing her distress regarding her own situation and the situation of Mary Jane. From the chronological order of publication of posts we get a real sense of her thought process while reading each part of the diaries, and in this sense we make the leap from patron to participant, finding out new things at a similar rate to the author herself. And then the focus shifts abruptly and entirely from the diaries and Mary Jane's to the hare and her own escape from this depressing house.
The blog offers the author a form of escape. Documenting her own suffering no matter the severity offers the author recognition; Realizing that which pains you, be it rat poop or a stinky mattress, in a way liberates the author from her predicament.
Edit: New Background...
Post-Edit: On a side note... I enjoy this Slice Blog much more...
So I too read Slice like I was supposed to. It seems like it is big news on all the course blogs. So I am going to put in my thoughts as well. My initial reaction was that I enjoyed it quite a bit even though it was very short and inconclusive. I thought it was similar to the "lonelygirl15" videos on youtube. Just the way they used a new medium to tell a narrative starting in a seemingly normal fashion. I didn't really like the girl in Slice (Lisa?), she seemed to be painted as the stereotypical miunderstood teenager who loves Emily the Strange and listens to The Cure. It is just a little generic is all I'm saying.
I don't know if anyone else felt vibes of Alice in Wonderland. The obvious connection would be the hare going down a hole into another world followed by a young, curious, girl. That screams Alice to me. Also the appearances of cats all over the place like the Cheshire Cat (Mary Jane's stuffed cat, Claribella). That one is actually a stretch but I needed something else to make my comparison seem meanigful.
Like most people there are a few things I didn't quite understand. I mean, besides the normal questions like "where the hell did they go?" and "what happened?", there was one thing that just struck me as odd. I was confused on how Mary Jane's family really died (if they died at all). Slice said that they died in a car accident. Her parents said they died in a plane crash. Did they just "go through" as well?
I didn't email the characters because I didn't know if I would actually get a response but I think it would have been really neat to be immersed in an interactive experiance like this. I thought the story was told brilliantly and ended exactly where it should have. Can't wait to discuss it in class.
So I just got through reading the Slice blogs. After my initial reaction of "Wow, this is really annoying to read bottom to top with way too much scrolling involved" I ended up thinking that this is really a pretty cool little mystery story. I was certainly intrigued. If it was written normally, like beginning to end straight down, and perhaps a little less casually, I bet you couldn't even tell it came from the internet. I bet you couldn't even distinguish it from some other short stroy mystery ghost stories. But the blog fromat does do it's part. It certainly makes the passing of time much more apparent as you can see exactly what happens when due to everything being timestamped. Having both the parents and childs view was also a interesting feature that might have been more difficult to do in a traditional book sense. In Slice's blog there is a lot more exposition I guess the word would be. But that doesn't make sense as it's a blog. But it starts earlier and tells us more about the move and how and why it happened. Now if you look at the parents blog it only starts on the last 2 days before Slice's disappearance and mostly is just posts worrying about where thier daughter is. As most parents should, but it doesn't make for as interesting a story as Slices blog. Her's is fun to see the progression of finding the diary, reading it, figuring out what it means, and looking through the hole. Although it did kind of leave me hanging. I wanted just a bit more information about this hole and where it lead and the significance of the hare/rabbit. But I suppose that is part of this mystery. We are supposed to find clues in each of the blogs and and piece it together. I haven't cheated yet and gone to one of those threads they posted in the comments that helps you solve it, I think after discussing it more in class and looking through it more I will go back and attempt to figure it out.
Also, I kind of noticed the connection between Alice in Wonderland and this. Hare going thorough a hole into another dimension? But that's all I've got so far.
But since we are on the subject, I like burgers. Probably one of my most favorite foods. On one hand, I would like to call myself a buger connoisseur. I have had an amazing variety of burgers from pizza bugers to buffalo and horse burgers to those burgers that have the cheese stuffed inside. But on the other hand connoisseur inplies that I have a taste for quality fancy burgers when, in actuality, I would love nothing more than a Big Mac or a Whopper. So I guess I will just go as far to say I really like burgers. In fact, my first week here I ate a burger everyday. They just don't get old. My only regret in the burger world is not having a royale with cheese. I had the opportunity, I was actually in Europe once and saw one. I wanted it, but we just walked on right by it to go do more touristy things. A sad day in my life. But I got over it and went on to eat more and more burgers. I try to get them at most restaurants, even the fancy ones. Believe it or not most places sell burgers or sandwiches that resemble burgers somehow. So its really not that hard a mission. Some people dismiss them as cheap pleasure food, but I think burgers are much more than that. They are tasty and can range from cheap to very fancy, just like any food. You can customize them with whatever toppings you want (I never have bacon on mine) and you always know to some degree what you are getting. All in all, they are yummy. Case closed.
