Sunday, March 27, 2011
Greatest Movies of Our Time
Ghost Adventures!
I have a new favorite TV show for Friday and Saturday nights and it goes by the name of Ghost Adventures! It is on the travel channel (channel 63 for us!) basically all night starting at seven on Fridays and Saturdays. And there is a lot of comedic value to the show, along with the occasional interesting ghost adventure.
The show begins with an introduction to the location that the coming episode will focus on. These locations are all hot spots for ghostly activity, and I have seen quite a large range of choices. Some episodes focus on old mental asylums and poor houses that have long since been shut down. I saw one episode on a house in Britain near Stonehenge where children's bones were found in the floor. There was even an episode on a house in Salem that has been standing since the infamous witch trials. Wherever the episode takes place the introduction is usually pretty interesting. They review the historical significance of the haunted place and interview people who have had encounters with ghosts in these buildings. All of this is pretty typical for a haunted show, but these men take a different approach to the last forty minutes of programming.
In each episode there are three main guys who explore the haunted venues, Zak, Nick, and Aaron. Aaron is by far my favorite, but that's coming. Zak is the main guy who does most of the voice overs and arranges for the team of three to be locked in that haunted building from nightfall to sunrise. Throughout the night the team walks around in the dark looking a listening for signs of a ghostly presence anywhere. Their whole goal is to prove that ghost exist on videotape. Zak goes about this by attempting to provoke the ghosts, often shouting things at them like "You're a coward" or "I bet you couldn't hurt me if you wanted to". He has a very interesting style, greased back hair and a lot of Ed Hardy as well. He then examines his footage for EVPs (or something I can't remember, let's just say electronic voice phenomenons). Often these EVPs come out sounding really muffled, but Zak can always translate them (really accurately I'm sure), and they usually are saying something hateful, like "Kill Zak" or "I hate Nick", pleasant material. Zak makes a convincing argument, clearly.
But Aaron is a completely different story. My friend and I like to joke that Aaron was into the show at first, hunting ghosts and being a rebel, but pretty soon he got really scared and he only stays on to fulfill his contract with the travel channel. Zak and Nick (who usually runs the camera) like to scare Aaron. Recently they locked him in the shower room of an old prison and left him alone. He was scared out of his mind, and asked only trivial questions like "I heard the food here was good. What was your favorite meal? The spaghetti and meatballs? I heard they're pretty good." Once when locked in an attic he asked a spirit if they knew killing themselves was a sin and basically had a heart attack while he was trying to explain how sorry he was while running out of the room. Aaron is often regarded as Zak and Nick's sacrifice to the ghosts, and he doesn't approve of his role.
Whatever is going on on Ghost Adventures, I'm sure to enjoy it, especially if Aaron is involved. Great show, and even better if you put aside the ghost hunting and focus on the comedy and their crude translations of ghost speak. Although I was frightened once by a flying brick a ghost threw. Overall, a quality show and worth anyones time.
The show begins with an introduction to the location that the coming episode will focus on. These locations are all hot spots for ghostly activity, and I have seen quite a large range of choices. Some episodes focus on old mental asylums and poor houses that have long since been shut down. I saw one episode on a house in Britain near Stonehenge where children's bones were found in the floor. There was even an episode on a house in Salem that has been standing since the infamous witch trials. Wherever the episode takes place the introduction is usually pretty interesting. They review the historical significance of the haunted place and interview people who have had encounters with ghosts in these buildings. All of this is pretty typical for a haunted show, but these men take a different approach to the last forty minutes of programming.
In each episode there are three main guys who explore the haunted venues, Zak, Nick, and Aaron. Aaron is by far my favorite, but that's coming. Zak is the main guy who does most of the voice overs and arranges for the team of three to be locked in that haunted building from nightfall to sunrise. Throughout the night the team walks around in the dark looking a listening for signs of a ghostly presence anywhere. Their whole goal is to prove that ghost exist on videotape. Zak goes about this by attempting to provoke the ghosts, often shouting things at them like "You're a coward" or "I bet you couldn't hurt me if you wanted to". He has a very interesting style, greased back hair and a lot of Ed Hardy as well. He then examines his footage for EVPs (or something I can't remember, let's just say electronic voice phenomenons). Often these EVPs come out sounding really muffled, but Zak can always translate them (really accurately I'm sure), and they usually are saying something hateful, like "Kill Zak" or "I hate Nick", pleasant material. Zak makes a convincing argument, clearly.
But Aaron is a completely different story. My friend and I like to joke that Aaron was into the show at first, hunting ghosts and being a rebel, but pretty soon he got really scared and he only stays on to fulfill his contract with the travel channel. Zak and Nick (who usually runs the camera) like to scare Aaron. Recently they locked him in the shower room of an old prison and left him alone. He was scared out of his mind, and asked only trivial questions like "I heard the food here was good. What was your favorite meal? The spaghetti and meatballs? I heard they're pretty good." Once when locked in an attic he asked a spirit if they knew killing themselves was a sin and basically had a heart attack while he was trying to explain how sorry he was while running out of the room. Aaron is often regarded as Zak and Nick's sacrifice to the ghosts, and he doesn't approve of his role.
Whatever is going on on Ghost Adventures, I'm sure to enjoy it, especially if Aaron is involved. Great show, and even better if you put aside the ghost hunting and focus on the comedy and their crude translations of ghost speak. Although I was frightened once by a flying brick a ghost threw. Overall, a quality show and worth anyones time.
Quizzical
One of my favorite pass times has started to become quite a bit of a time killer. You've probably heard of it. It's called Sporcle. Basically it is this killer website that has a whole bunch of quizzes created by users that anyone can take. And the topics range from everything from the countries of the world to the lyrics of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song. Whatever is on your mind there is probably a quiz on Sporcle about it. But probably ten or more. The variety is enormous.
And it also helps you to realize some of the things you never even knew you knew. I took a quiz a couple of days ago about fonts. That's right, fonts. In this particular quiz it had Sporcle written in fonts from well known brands, like Google and ESPN, and you had to type in the company that matches the font. I did pretty well, and it really made me realize some of the things a see everyday stick in my mind, and instead of the names of the companies being recognizable, the fonts are too. You can play that amazing quiz here.
But one of the best features of this website is not the search feature where you can look for quizzes about things you know, or even browsing through all the quizzes about TV shows or sports, but the button that takes you to a random quiz. It gives you a really happy feeling when you look down at the loading screen and realize you could in fact name all of the Disney Princesses. Or maybe just miss one. The correct answers are almost always shown to you when time runs out, or you can give up early to see the answers you did not know. However there are some quizzes where that does not work quite as well.
Some quizzes have answers that build off of each other. This particular Harry Potter quiz requires you to know the previous answer before you can go onto the next question, and if you are a true Harry Potter expert, take it and you will see why. It requires you to know things such as who killed Dumbledore and who is the headmaster or Victor Krum's wizarding school. And one stumped answer is the end for you on this quiz.
There are also quizzes where one answer you don't know is nothing, because you'll probably never finish them anyways in the amount of time allotted. Who could name all the countries in the world (especially spelled correctly) in just a few minutes. Go ahead, try. It is pretty difficult. Or name the top 200 characters in the Harry Potter series by how many times their name is mentioned. It really is quite difficult. But to me the type of quiz I am taking does not really matter, as long as I know a few answers to the questions. It really is a fun way to waste more than a few hours on end.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
EverythingNothing
Last fall Amir Blumenfeld and Streeter Seidell started a new podcast entitled EverythingNothing. They use the pseudonyms of Dannis O'Connell and and Dennis O'Connor respectively. They even have their own twitter feed for the podcast, mostly consisting up of updates on new podcasts and extended jokes. And this podcast is hilarious. It has a different type of humor than Jake and Amir. Their catchphrase is, "The only podcast in the known universe dedicated to arts, science, literature, philosophy and everythingnothing in between." It also opens with some smooth jazz music. But this podcast is far from the serious air they ironically put off. One character (I get them mixed up but whichever one Streeter plays) was raised in a unconventional way and keeps track of time in lunar years. He has interesting stories to frequently "interject". Amir's character is seemingly more normal, but often does stupid things, like losing the use of his feet. They both act as if they are extremely well-informed while in reality they are completely out of it, and it make for great comedy, especially when combined with a game of minesweeper (which is a whole different topic). It's best if you start from the beginning, episode 401. Highly recommended.
Prelims are enough
Well, my trip to Florida is approaching quickly, and we're finally starting to work out some of the finer details. Everyone is allowed to swim one time trial per day, and I'm signing up for the 50 Fly and 100 Fly. However, I'm a little bit nervous. The last time I swam a decent 100 Fly was about six months ago, and I don't want to make a fool of myself in front of all these fantastic swimmers who can consistently kick my butt. Hopefully I'll be able to avoid the shame of coming in last place (and I think I can) since the qualifying time is a few seconds slower than my best, but you never know what kind of shame might occur. At least I'm not in the actual race, which you have to be able to swim in less than a minute simply to qualify for! I can't even imagine what you have to do to win. But, no matter how my race turns out I'm pretty sure I'll have a fun time in Ft. Lauderdale regardless. I mean, it is Florida after all, and I can enjoy it while everyone else is sitting in school back in Iowa. Ha ha ha. And I'll have Harry Potter World to look forward to, which will definitely be the highlight of my trip even if my relay managed to win nationals, Harry Potter wins in my eyes.
My medley relay makes me nervous on a whole different level. We aren't in a time trial. It's the real thing. We qualified nearly six months ago and we really need to pull out a good, no a great time to avoid the embarrassment of coming in LAST place. That can not happen. There was a bit of a confusion at our last championship meet and my whole relay didn't swim together, meaning I wasn't on it. But the other three girls swam fast, which makes me pretty optimistic that we'll end up doing alright at the meet, as long as I can pull out a fast time, too. I've been working a lot on my stroke lately, so I think it's manageable. I don't really think there's a lot of pressure for us to do fantastic overall though. We qualified with a time just a few tenths under the qualifying time, so we'll probably be one of the slowest seeds. And that's okay. There isn't a lot of expectations for us to do super well. No one is expecting us to make it to the finals (the top 24 teams) when we'll probably be seeded somewhere around sixty, so I'm okay if we don't go. The finals are in the afternoon and at night, and I'll spend that time on the beach if I'm not swimming. However the meet turns out I'm okay, as long as we don't come in last place. But recently is was questionable if we were going to be able to go at all.
Due to unfortunate circumstances I missed the state qualifying meet, sectionals, and that put us in a predicament. In order to swim at nationals you have to swim in the state meet, probably some rule to make sure the state meet stays a competition with competitors who still know how to swim, and it seemed like that wasn't going to happen for me. My coach somehow worked it out so I could swim in the last relay (freestyle) and someone else could swim for me at sectionals. So I got to the state meet and we realized that if our team got disqualified our national trip we had already planned would have to be cancelled. So our coach talked to us, "slow, safe exchanges", and I guess we took it to heart. I probably spent a good second and a half on the block after the person in front of me finished. But we didn't get disqualified, and even ended up with sixth place (not very good), nonetheless, everything was okay. Our sixth place meant more, we could go to nationals. And now it doesn't really matter if we make it past prelims or not, the fact that we get to go to the meet at all is enough for me and my team. And obviously Harry Potter is a big part of that
My medley relay makes me nervous on a whole different level. We aren't in a time trial. It's the real thing. We qualified nearly six months ago and we really need to pull out a good, no a great time to avoid the embarrassment of coming in LAST place. That can not happen. There was a bit of a confusion at our last championship meet and my whole relay didn't swim together, meaning I wasn't on it. But the other three girls swam fast, which makes me pretty optimistic that we'll end up doing alright at the meet, as long as I can pull out a fast time, too. I've been working a lot on my stroke lately, so I think it's manageable. I don't really think there's a lot of pressure for us to do fantastic overall though. We qualified with a time just a few tenths under the qualifying time, so we'll probably be one of the slowest seeds. And that's okay. There isn't a lot of expectations for us to do super well. No one is expecting us to make it to the finals (the top 24 teams) when we'll probably be seeded somewhere around sixty, so I'm okay if we don't go. The finals are in the afternoon and at night, and I'll spend that time on the beach if I'm not swimming. However the meet turns out I'm okay, as long as we don't come in last place. But recently is was questionable if we were going to be able to go at all.
Due to unfortunate circumstances I missed the state qualifying meet, sectionals, and that put us in a predicament. In order to swim at nationals you have to swim in the state meet, probably some rule to make sure the state meet stays a competition with competitors who still know how to swim, and it seemed like that wasn't going to happen for me. My coach somehow worked it out so I could swim in the last relay (freestyle) and someone else could swim for me at sectionals. So I got to the state meet and we realized that if our team got disqualified our national trip we had already planned would have to be cancelled. So our coach talked to us, "slow, safe exchanges", and I guess we took it to heart. I probably spent a good second and a half on the block after the person in front of me finished. But we didn't get disqualified, and even ended up with sixth place (not very good), nonetheless, everything was okay. Our sixth place meant more, we could go to nationals. And now it doesn't really matter if we make it past prelims or not, the fact that we get to go to the meet at all is enough for me and my team. And obviously Harry Potter is a big part of that
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
All about a baby deer with a dead mom
I was watching TV last night and there was a commercial for Disney's Bambi on DVD. This is going to be the Diamond Edition Blu-Ray and DVD pack. There will likely be a ridiculous amount of special features included in this package, but I don't see a problem with enhancing the movie watching experience. What I do have an issue with is how these new advances are making my library of VHS's at home obsolete. I don't even think I have a working VHS player in my house anymore. So now I'm forced to buy a newer, better copy of the same movie I already have to be able to watch it. Dumb. I feel like this new Bambi is more about learning how to draw Thumper than watching a simple movie of a deer with a dead mom. The main attention should be focused on the original plot and there should be less hype about the enhanced color and new interviews added to the bonus features. I guess all I really want is for Disney to send me a free copy of this Diamond Edition DVD, considering I have the classic VHS version. I'm not buying it again, simple as that.
In fact, I think I only own one movie with multiple copies at my house, and that movie would be White Christmas. Last year we bought the colorized version on DVD (our old one a black and white VHS), and it was pretty cool. I guess you could say it was worth it, we do watch this movie every year. But Bambi, how often would I really watch it? Not that often. And definitely not worth owning two copies of it. If I really need to watch Bambi, I'll find a way to watch the original somewhere where there is a VHS player available. Maybe these newer, better editions are just overrated.
I'm optimistic that my VHS will be enough for now.
In fact, I think I only own one movie with multiple copies at my house, and that movie would be White Christmas. Last year we bought the colorized version on DVD (our old one a black and white VHS), and it was pretty cool. I guess you could say it was worth it, we do watch this movie every year. But Bambi, how often would I really watch it? Not that often. And definitely not worth owning two copies of it. If I really need to watch Bambi, I'll find a way to watch the original somewhere where there is a VHS player available. Maybe these newer, better editions are just overrated.
I'm optimistic that my VHS will be enough for now.
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