Ran ran RUUUUUU

So it’s nearly February 2008, and the one-month anniversary of my blog.

Yes, I started at the beginning of December. That’s nearly two months. However, I only updated maybe about one month’s worth of posts in that time, so I’m calling it even. Congratulations to me! Woohoo, and also hooray!

Anyways. My computer is working again!

This fact is very pleasing to Nathan. You see, one of the biggest obstacles stopping me from blogging in the past few weeks has been a broken computer. Or rather, not so much broken as “out of commission”. The monitor wasn’t getting a signal from the computer, and the power button would only work once out of every six or so tries. This is the result of a broken power supply. My dad and I went to Best Buy, bought a replacement, and that was that. It’s working again. Hooray.

Also, an exciting observation: I thought that life would be less busy after midterms. Not really. I suppose it’s always like this. At least for right now, solo and ensemble for orchestra are exactly a week away and oh how terrified I am. You don’t even know.

So, I think I will leave you with a video or two, which I found from Jorge.
Ronald McDonald, in Japan, is a little bit terrifying. Just a little.
I suggest watching the first 20 seconds, and stopping in favor of this video:

This is Ronald McDonald noises arranged around a song from an independent Japanese shmup-type game. It’s an incredibly catchy song, especially with added RAN RAN RUUUUS.

That’s something I do when I feel happy.

Cheers, Nathan

Okay, so the blog died for a bit.

Time to stop the habit of breaking the habit!

In the mean time, myself and two fellows I know who call ourselves “The Giant Pile” have finished another video.
Perhaps watch it.

Better blog to come tomorrow!
www.youtube.com/thegiantpile

Cheers, Nathan

A follow-up to that movie post.

I went back and read it, and said “Dang, Nathan! That sure was existential (usage three) and very pretentious of you! Stop it! You know better than to do that to your readers!”

I did it anyway. I’m sorry.

But it got me thinking, again. “Nathan, do you really have a right to essentially say “NO WORLD YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW THIS MOVIE UNDERSTANDS ME AND NO ONE ELSE?” It’s a Fox-funded production, and has made $70 million dollars.”

So I looked up reviews of the movie.
There seems to be two sets of people: the people who liked the movie and thought it was great, and the people who hated it, found it unfunny, or thought it was a bunch of pretentious indie “let’s name drop a bunch of bands so we can be cool” festival.

Not everyone likes the movie, but that’s okay.

I apologize for making you sit through a big toolongdidn’tread fest, but here’s the skinny:
Juno is, in Nathan’s opinion, a fantastic movie that everyone should see. And yes, there are people who talk like that in existence. Nathan knows them all, apparently.

Cheers again, Nathan

Dusting the dust away. (Plus, Nathan’s favorite movie.)

Isn’t it funny how you dust dust? Dust is a bad thing, yet it’s what you do to get rid it. It’s awfully existential.

That is the first time I will use the word “existential”, and I will use it exactly once more in this post.

Midterm season is officially over, so now I have time to write. I will use this time and update you on Nathan’s life. I would apologize, but you’re reading this post, so you probably care about that sort of thing.

…I lost my blogging vibe there for a moment. I’m out of practice.
I think I am better now. Time to talk about my life for the past two weeks.

First, midterms. This is the first time I’ve had to experience this sort of thing, and I’ve done it at Communications Arts high school. This is a very good place to do it at, because from what it seems, everyone freaks out enough to be really scared of the results, but not freaked out enough to actually do something about it. (For example, study. That doesn’t happen. Seriously, NO ONE. Except maybe a few people but they’re an exception.)

Nathan is one of those exceptions. I like to throw myself study parties for important tests. A successful study party will be incredibly enriching for myself, but I require a few things: first, a crunchy food item of some kind, and second, music.

There’s only one album I can truly study to. “Give Up” by The Postal Service. I have no idea why, but anything else is very distracting until I’ve listened through that whole album once. In the past week, I listened to it 11 times. Never once was I sick of it.

Plus, I can probably sing it all to you from memory.

In the end, it helped! I got very good grades, and for that I am proud.
(Sorry for lapsing into Philippe-esque speech for that last sentence.)

Also, I have purchased a dry-erase board. I’m very happy with this purchase. To be honest, it’s a bit of a crappy dry-erase board, but that makes me love it even more. 18 by 24 inches, just a board. Nothing fancy. Not even any sort of hanging apparatus. So I set it on my desk, and I write things on it. I’ll probably find a better use for it, but currently it has very disjointed thoughts in four colors. I think it’s got something about orchestra contest, and how cool of a name “Barack Obama” is (I will cover this in a later post), and a little cartoon popsicle.

Finally, my third topic.
The movie “Juno.”

I’ve heard lots about this movie, but I was like “bleh. Teen comedy.” I get a call from Brenden (who is a friend of mine who I’ll probably talk about sometime) saying, “Nathan, see this movie. It understands us.”

That’s what we did today. Two people became seven, and it was a good Friday experience.

As far as the movie goes, I feel really terrible for not wanting to see it. Also, I don’t understand why anyone else but myself and the people I know would want to see it. Everything in this movie feels as if I’ve known it for a long time. It’s all very familiar, and stunning, and spectacular, and amazing.

It’s a teen comedy that actually captures how it feels to be a teenager. (Perhaps only my specific brand/methodology of being a teenager, but I digess.) And this is a movie about teen pregnancy. Nathan wasn’t expecting this much from it.

I tend to hate teen comedies. They’re nothing like real life: everyone is a stereotype, and all the characters have incredibly thought-out dialogue and the football player gets the cheerleader and yay everyone’s happy the end.

Juno isn’t that movie. It’s messy, doesn’t make sense, and very awkward. Much like real life. Conversations go silent for half a minute at a time. A scene will go on a few seconds too long. (You keep expecting a fadeout during the ending scene, but it keeps going for a full two minutes past what you’d expect.)

This is part of the reason why I love it, and another part of the reason why I can’t understand how anyone else likes it. It’s so personal, and existential.
(Ha ha! Usage number two!)
Plus, the soundtrack is fantastic.

So. Go see it. If you don’t like it, I can understand why. The feel of it may be entirely unfamiliar to you. Maybe it’s just my life that’s all messy and confusing, and everyone else actually has perfect, fantastic “guy-gets-cheerleader” things.

But this is MY blog, and MY opinions, and Nathan thinks this is his favorite movie of 2007, and 2008, and probably my teenage years. I’d go back and see it like eight times. And buy the soundtrack. (I did, in fact! Thanks, iTunes.)

Besides, it’s got lots of orange Tic-Tacs.

Alrighty! A recap of my life for the past two weeks, plus a bunch of pretentious wankery. I think I”m set! Time to go practice cello.

Cheers, Nathan

(EDIT/NOTE: Wow. I really didn’t say much about the movie itself. Eh, go check Wikipedia. It’s incredibly good. And honestly, it is what a lot of my friends are like, except they aren’t pregnant.)

Air Supply are the worst band ever.

Also, Pete has excellent opinions.
I would write more, but midterms are looming, so it’s crunch time for the Comm. Arts kids.

Ciao. Nathan.

Good Hotel+Insomnia

We are currently in Kansas. This is competely great and fantastic by me, woohoo, et cetera. One more day of driving, and then it’s school again. I question the logistics of starting school on that Monday: it’s not a very nice thing to do. Why not just start on Tuesday and give us one ittybitty day of vacation more?

Anyway. I couldn’t sleep in the hotel room last night. There are a few things Nathan thought about during his insomniac period that I don’t think I’ve ever thought about before, nor do I plan on ever thinking about again. These include:
-Why do I only have like 20% of the bed my sister is ten and doesn’t take that much room
-Agh conflabbit I’m falling out again time to get out and readjust the pillows
-Why don’t bottled water and tap water taste the same?
-Dang, peepholes on doors are really cool
-Dang, these are REALLY REALLY cool
-In that Elton John song, is the girl who’s dancing tiny, or are her dances tiny?
-Also, why is love a battlefield?

I prefer sleeping. I may go do that now.

Cheers, Nathan

A Personal Victory for Nathan

So we began our traveling type journey home today. More driving in the car is cool by me. I’ve got places to go and music to listen to. Or something like that. I dunno.

We stopped at the aunt/uncle/cousin house in Northfield again, and I got recruited to help set up a new MacBook my aunt received! Basically, my task was to transfer various personal files and settings from the larger computer to the aforementioned laptop. I was, as far as I’m concerned, pretty dang successful.

I also made twenty dollars! This is a very enlightening/happy thing. I may actually attempt to turn this into a business!

(I also did this for another aunt. Cleaned up her work computer. It was messy and full of spyware. For that, I got a sweatshirt and a plate of spaghetti. As far as Nathan’s concerned, this is also a worthy payment, as both of those things are enjoyable.)

So basically, bug me if you need help with your computer~

Cheerio, Nathan

Arbitrary “Best Of” List For 2007: Music! :D

Every good blog that no one reads has to do this at some point, so…here you go? I’m not gonna divide it up into albums and songs, because that would require making two lists. Nathan doesn’t really have the attention span for such a thing. Also, there’s no ranking. Some of this stuff is so different, attempting to do that would be like saying “This apple is better than that trendy tote bag.”
GETTING TO THE POINT
2007 was fantastic, music wise. It’d be a shame to let some things go unnoticed, so I’m going to expand your horizons. Maybe.

SECOND POST OF 2008

For some reason I find this an event to be celebrated with confetti, fireworks, and a glass of Diet Pepsi. Maybe I should do this for every blog post. I’d probably get fat, but then again, I’d also blog a lot more. I will weigh the pros and cons of this option and continue on later.

Today, I came to a sudden realization as I woke up. “Oh crap!” said I. “I have to prepare that speech for Mrs. D by next Monday, or I’m doomed to fail!” Failure is not something I enjoy. I actuallydid work~

Of course, it may have been counterproductive to spend an hour revising my outline instead of actually working on the Powerpoint, but what can I say. Maybe it’ll have a positive effect. The rest of the day up until mid-afternoon was spent thinking about my problems and wondering why I wasn’t playing my DS like I should’ve been.

The other day, I got this game called Luminous Arc. It’s a strategy-type RPG that seems inspired by Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, and by that I mean it’s pretty much exactly like it. That’s okay by Nathan, though. I really liked that game. As such, I pretty much enjoy this one, too! The characters are actually pretty memorable, too, and interestingly, there’s voiceacting during the cutscenes! The voices are a bit..odd in some cases, and the dialogue could use some work (i.e. “You look sweaty. You need to bathe. D:<”), but it’s worth a purchase. It’s obscure, but seek it out! You can probably get it for $25 at a Gamestop.

Fight for your right to play video games! (That aren’t Madden. Everyone plays that.) It’s not for kids. It’s for everybody! Woooo~

That topic I will probably cover later. For now, more of what I did today.

Happy 2008~

At least for the Central time zone and east, at the time of this post. Everyone on the Pacific coast: Close your eyes and hide until this post becomes applicable to you. Thank you.
—
So I blinked, and it’s 2008. It has, in fact, been 2008 for the past 52 minutes. This is a very odd feeling.

I liked 2007. 2007 was a good year. As far as I’m concerned, it can stick around for another month or two if it wants. This, of course, is not possible. So…we can only hope 2008’s going to turn out just fine, correct?

I don’t know what I’m talking about any longer. I’m a bit wasted. (TIRED, that is. I consumed two Pepsis, but no alcohol.) I guess it’s time for some incoherent rambling! Ah, the first incoherent rambling of the year. My favorite.

Thank you to:
Old friends. You know who you all are.
New friends. See above.
Other things I can’t think of right now because I’m totally wasted as I said before
God, too! :D

No thanks to:
That stupid speech I have to give for Ms. D (more on that later, I should probably work on it)

Over the course of the past year, things changed a lot. The notebook (which some of you know about. to others, ask me about it sometime) happened after a long midnight reading of the last volume of Azumanga Daioh (again, ask for clarification), life got rad, summer happened, Comm. Arts happened, life continued to be rad, and Erica ate a lot of my pizza crust.

…Thanks?
:D

Cheers, and a merry 2008 to you,
Nathan~