Flashy

I did this a few years ago on my old blog, but I thought I'd share some of the great flash animations I've come across on the web.

1. This is a video for the song JCB by the British band Nizlopi. It's a really cool video and if you haven't heard the band I suggest you check them out.



2. This is a pretty funny clip of a stick man fighting back against the his creator.


3. This is a flash cartoon for the Radiohead song Creep. It's a somewhat depressing clip, but it's very well done and the song rocks.


4. I linked this one last time, but it's still great. Called Drum Machine.


See?? Aren't those amazing!?! You can thanks me later...

Oh, and then there's videos like this one

Reflections

This time of year is always fairly reflective for most people. Everyone's making their "New Year's Resolutions" and looking back on all of their accomplishments and failures of 2007 and thinking of how much 2008 will be different; better. I try my best to avoid this trap, but have found it difficult to avoid this year.

Starting with my class reunion in November, I had almost nothing to share with these people whom I hadn't spoken to in 10 years. I graduated from college, have a job, an apartment and in my free time I play my horn or watch movies. My job isn't really that interesting to talk about. "I do computer stuff for X company. It's alright. It pays the bills!" is my typical response when people who I haven't seen for a long time ask me what I do. Thankfully in the case of my high school class, they didn't have any jaw dropping stories to tell either so I didn't feel too bad. But most of them have families now and at least have moved into that stage of the life cycle. I can't really relate there. I don't have a significant other, nor a family of my own. In my free time I do drum corps, which only a very small sliver of the population can relate with or even find it interesting.

On Christmas Eve I ran into two friends from high school. Both of whom are essentially living their dream. One of them, Charlie, spends his winter finishing up seminary school and his spring and summer pitching for the St. Paul Saints. Not the major leagues by any means, but there are some big name players who have either started with the Saints or gone there after the majors. But what boy didn't have the dream at some point to get paid to play baseball? The second friend I talked to was Cassie. I hadn't seen her for maybe 4 years and come to find out that she's working on a Masters Degree in something like International student studies at Cambridge and has spent the past 3 years in South Korea. Wow!

So what about me? What can I do? Well, I really do still want to continue my education. In order to do that however, I think I need to take a few steps backwards and probably get another bachelors degree before I can step forward for a masters. My current degree and education left me horribly unprepared to further my education in Classical Archeology and now that I've been out of college for upwards of 6 years, my educational references are no longer legit.

I just need to set a goal and start planning how to achieve it.

Oratorio? Nay, OratoriNO

This past Thursday evening, I attended the Minnesota Orchestra's performance of Handel's Messiah at The Cathedral in Saint Paul. It'd been touted from different sources as a "must see" and "a great holiday tradition". I'm not really sure personally how The Messiah started getting tied to Christmas. It was written for Easter and looking at the words that they're singing you can tell it's very Easter oriented. But anyways, after a refreshing jog through the snow and full of pizza, Tacy and I arrived in our seats right when the performance began.

There were four soloists who performed, a tenor, bass, mezzo and soprano. The tenor guy, was by far the best. When he was standing up front, even when he wasn't singing he was portraying this extremely confident vibe and he was very animated and articulate in his singing.

The mezzo girl was...well, odd I guess. Part of the reason, we agreed, was that her voice didn't seem to match her body. She's a small framed blonde girl singing a very low part. Tacy said it sounds like she was making her "froggy voice", which is the voice you make when you want to sound operatic and don't really have the voice for it.

The other two, soprano and bass, were both good, but nothing remarkable.

Being unfamiliar with Handel, other than the Hallelujah chorus, I was expecting large sweeping melodies and intricate harmonies and a lush, rich sound. I was unfortunately disappointed. The whole Messiah is a repetitive jumble. And while it may partly have been due to bad acoustics in the Cathedral, the orchestra sounded thin. Give me Beethoven or Dvorák any day over this.

I can't complain too much though. I'm glad I went. It was definitely an experience worth having and I had a good time. Thanks Tacy for sticking through it.

Welcome to Decemberland!

Mother Nature ushered in December in grand fashion last weekend and gently reminded us where we live by dumping a pile of snow on the area. I stayed in for most of the day, but decided to wander out and take some pictures in the early afternoon. Unfortunately, my camera has lost it's spunk and only works when it wants to. So I only got a few decent pictures.


I rather enjoy taking pictures and would enjoy photography as a hobby, but I think I need some better equipment before I can make a decent effort at it. It's hard to take good candid shots of people when you have to stand 2 feet away from them and ask them hold still while you get your camera to auto-focus. Maybe some day I'll shell out for a decent camera. Until then however, we will all have to suffer with my bad pictures.



I guess I can only blame the camera so much for my lack of artistry.



Three goals for this winter: Make a snowman, go sledding, attempt snowboarding