Name:Dan Country:United States State:California Metro:Los Angeles Birthday:11/14/1985 Gender:Male
Interests:fishing, camping, playing big band music with Swing-Time Orchestra, linguistics, history (especially Armenian and Finnish history, and anything from 1935-1945), Lord of the Rings (the book, not so much the movie), writing a spinoff of LOTR, Seinfeld, The Daily Show, Christopher Guest's mockumentaries, Napoleon Dynamite, Kung Pow, Escanaba in da Moonlight, Monty Python, Star Trek, Star Wars (IV-VI), other stuff that doesn't come to mind at the moment... Expertise:trivia/useless information (especially Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, some Star Trek, most things Armenian and/or Finnish history), playing whatever instrument I can get my hands on (mainly clarinet and trombone), the Sasquatch phenomenon, amusing people, pretending to speak Klingon Occupation:Artist Industry:Entertainment
Well, I was intending to post here at least weekly. So much for
that. Oh well, I'll write something this week. Until then,
marvel at this musical oddity:
Summer's here, which means three months of free time. Every June,
I think of a bunch of things that I tell myself I'll do before school
starts again in September. And of course, I never do any of
them. But this year, I got an idea--if I tell people everything
I'm planning on doing, then I just may do some of them. So, here
goes, in no particular order. This summer, I will:
--Read The Silmarillion
--Finish reading the Kalevala
--Read as much of the Bible as can be managed (the whole thing, hopefully)
--Read the Book of Mormon
--Read the Qur'an
--Become knowledgeable enough to have an informed argument when Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses come to the door
--Start fixing up the jeep
--Make progress with that language I've been creating
--Meru Nimfeloskid kwetan
--Begin to learn Spanish
--Finish painting the house
--Start Ska-Time Orchestra with Irik
--On trombone, increase my range by a fifth (from Ab above middle C to Eb)
--Learn to play my cornet
--Re-learn clarinet
--Improve my music transcription/arranging abilities
--Go fishing often
--Hang out with friends more often, or at least IM more often
--Go see Snakes on a Plane and Nacho Libre
I’ve decided that myspace is better for keeping in touch
with friends, but it doesn’t really lend itself to casual day-to-day-type
blogs.
Well, the last six months have been interesting. My swing band disbanded, then my dog had a
stroke and had to be put down. The weird
thing was, my dog was put down the day after the 9-month anniversary of my aunt’s
death.
But I’m out of school until the end of September, and I’ve
got a couple of camping trips planned, so that’s good.
About a year ago I got a myspace, and even though I’ve been continuing to post on xanga, I must say that myspace is just better in my opinion. I’ve been posting here mainly out of spite toward those who told me to abandon it, but that’s proved fruitless as they don’t really care. That, plus only one or two people actually read this thing anyway.
I might log in occasionally, but I guess this is my last real post on xanga. If you want, you can add my myspace.If not, thanks for reading.
I saw the King Kong remake the other day.First off, I thought that as far as adaptations go, Jackson did a better job with King Kong than with The Lord of the Rings. The King Kong remake was, except for one or two things, quite true to the original; he even included some music from the original. The only change I had any problem with is that Jackson decided to make Ann Darrow eventually to sympathize with Kong; in my opinion it was way too sappy. The only things missing were the pancakes and the butter. But then again, at least he didn’t take out one of the most important parts of the ending like he did when he cut “The Scouring of the Shire” from Return of the King. He has time to add that stupid bit where Gollum turns Frodo against Sam, yet he doesn’t even film what Tolkien himself considered to be one of the most important part of the entire trilogy. Bastard…
Although he did a pretty good job writing the movie, I thought his directing could have been better.There were way too many slow-motion shots of peoples’ faces; it was really distracting after the second or third time.The other problem, on the opposite end of the spectrum, was that a lot of the action shots were too fast-paced; my eyes couldn’t focus on anything. I’ve noticed this in a lot of movies nowadays, scenes where the directors try to show off their cutting-edge CGI by cramming as much down the audience’s throat as possible.When I see this, it seems to me that they’re trying to distract me from something crappy, be it the visual effects or their inability to tell a story.
Even though the special effects in Jackson’s King Kong were obviously better than in the original, I don’t think it made that big of a difference. When I watched the original, I found that the stop-motion creatures didn’t distract me from the story; the story and acting were good enough to carry the film and I kept forgetting that I was watching a clay gorilla. But when I was watching the remake, I kept thinking that it was some pretty good CGI—I couldn’t forget that I was watching a computer-generated image.
Sometimes it seems like computers are ruining the art of filmmaking.Nowadays it seems like more emphasis is being placed on making it look good and less on making a good film.Look at Gods and Generals; it looked to me like they altered the picture a lot (color balance, etc.) which made the whole thing look fake to me. Plus, I thought something seemed off in all the battle scenes.I though Gettysburg was much better, and I’d be surprised if there was any CGI at all.
Now I’ll get off my soapbox and get back to The Andy Milonakis Show.
I rock peas on my head but don't call me a pea-head.
Bees on my head but don't call me a bee-head.
Bruce Lee's on my head but don't call me a Lee-head.
Now please excuse me, I gotta get my tree fed.
“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that counts. It’s the life in your years.”
--Abraham Lincoln
“I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”
