Koyaanisqatsi

So, this is the fifth time I've watched Koyaanisqatsi (I watched it four times in a row my sophomore year in high school, as I had to sculpt a minute-by-minute analysis), and honestly, it didn't get much better.
The music sucked. There is a joke about the composer:
Knock knock!
Who's there?
Phillip Glass!
Knock knock!
Who's there?
Phillip Glass!
etc. etc, which is a pretty good representation of his music. It's supposed to be mesmerizing; I only got extremely bored and annoyed.
The scenery was adequate; there were several powerful shots, such as the garbage, and the beach next to the factory (apparently, if I remember correctly from 10th grade, the buildings represented round tombs/gravestones, symbolizing the death of nature.) I suppose the atomic bomb would be compelling too, if I didn't know from research that the shot was Photoshopped.
I think that the movie could have made the contrast clearer. I could tell that the cinematographer was trying to contrast nature with urbanity, yet it had quite beautiful, peaceful shots of the city, which confused me.
The meatpacking part was my personal favorite. The hurried frenzy of the sausages and hot dogs interposed with the busy freeways was quite comical, and was kind of disturbing, comparing cars to hunks of meat (but a good kind of disturbing).
I also liked the Hopi cultural aspect of the film. It brought a sort of ancient, mystical feel into the movie, which did contrast nicely with the urbanization of our society.
However, other than that, I found the movie dry, and not at powerful as advertised. And long. The shots were too long, and slow. I felt that if I watched the movie at 2x, I would be a lot more supportive of the movie. However, spending 10 minutes on the same shot, with the same arpeggio playing over and over again gets extremely irritating.
So, overall, there are several good parts of Koyaanisqatsi, but it is overal slow, dry, and boring.

:P

Well, I've just gotten over the THIRD FRICKIN' TIME i'm sick in a month, this time with a sore throat, fever, and headaches. First time was mono-like, with a lump in my throat and general ugggghhhness. Second was mucusal. coughing, sneezing, etc. etc.
So, hopefully it's over. Maybe I should have more vitamins in my diet. That's kinda hard, however.
~Roland

Manuscript

So, I decided on what to do with my manuscript:
I'm going to write a fictional piece, with flashbacks that underline certain important aspects of my life. The main character is a 15-year-old girl, dying from a pierced lung, subconsciously recounting on her life.
Let me know what y'all think!
~Roland

Election 2008

The short story is, all the candidates suck.
That includes VPs, too.
With the exception of Nader, of course.
DISCLAIMER: I will spend the next eh, ten minutes explicating exactly what I have wrong with them.
Let it begin.
First up, Obama. He can talk, for sure, but I always get the impression he doesn't know what he's talking about. He has no experience, and I don't trust him running the country after being in the Senate for a measly 4 years, is it?
His whole campaign is based around change. I call BS. I feel like Obama should only base his campaign around change if he really plans to make drastic changes. And since when did people want drastic change? No doubt, even McCain will bring change in the two years he'll live in office.
Plus, I find his plan on the economy sketchy, at best. When he indicates that he will cut income taxes for middle-class peoples, I will bet four years of my life that that plan also includes higher sales and property taxes, as well as the same, if not higher, taxes for lower-class Americans.
In general, his plan for the economy seems to involved mass amounts of money that seem to come from nowhere. Plus, Americans with a high salary work for that salary, so personally I don't see why they should be taxed more just because they took the time to educate themselves and receive a better job.
Next, McCain.
He supports troops in Iraq. Automatic turnoff for me. Who still supports troops in Iraq? the figures say very few. There are also a similar number of people who are not OK in the head.
Plus, he has the physique of an 80-year-old man, which would be pretty accurate considering his age.
Another topic that I personally have strong beliefs in is energy, and McCain just doesn't cut it. He supports domestic sources of oil. This means Alaska, and I would be willing to bet four years of my life on it--after all, his VP is from Alaska. Supporting domestic oil means Arctic Oil spills, animal poisoning, and possible decimation of sea otter, artic fox, and caribou species.
Also, he wants to build 45 nuclear power plants. That ticks me off. On average, a power plant produces 2.2 tons of radioactive waste every year. That radioactive waste cannot have energy extracted from it. That's 99 TONS of radioactivity a year. Where does all that go?
Nevada, of course.

VPs
Palin seems a little cooky in the head to me. She doesn't really seem to have the best memory of all, and I don't feel America is ready to have her leading in two years. Plus, she's only on the ticket because she's a woman, and she's from Alaska.
Don't get me started on Biden. I saw him in DC, debating. No further comments.

Nader
Nader is awesome. Whoever can run as a third-party candidate for--what, like five elections?--and still be alive deserves a hand of applause.

Plus, it's not like I can vote, anyways.

Flipping to the Colbert Report,
~Roland

Hoppers!

In my Design Nature class, we're supposed to design things that hop made out of limited materials (capacitors, plastic, rubber hose, tubing, wire, etc.)
I FINALLY got my trigger to work--our hopper has to relay at least .5s until it launches--but it will only fly on an inclined surface. Oh well, it finally works and it meets my goal, and I only got hit in the jaw three times and a cut on my finger :p small price to pay!
Applying NeoSporin,
~Roland
And to prove i'm NOT procrastinating, this is due in a week.
That's right, a non-procrastinating college student.
Of course, I also have a lab due in a matter of hours I haven't really looked at yet :\

Current

Current, by Stuart Dybek:

The third rail
and the electric chair

are charged with the current
that glows tonight

in the bedside lamp
illuminating your body.

I like this poem, but as the paranoid being I am, I couldn't help but read this with an overall macabre tone. I feel like Dybek is wishing the electricity that runs through the rail and the chair, both of which kill people rather gruesomely, into the bedside lamp and subsequently into the body.
While the poem contains 'happy' words such as illuminating and glowing, it still has a subtle, morbid undertone; I feel like the souls of those killed by the electricity, all glowing, come back through the current into the night, and ultimately onto his subject's body.

Checking doors and windows,
~Roland