Coming To Town

Photo of sick me trying to get some rest. In the song Santa Clause Is Coming To Town, the line "so be good for goodness sake" is one that I find particularly strange. It is presented as some sort of conclusion to an argument that doesn't actually exist within the song. If there is a present argument within the text, the conclusion would be something closer to "so be good for someone is always watching everything you do". I do like the "goodness sakes" line though so I suppose one would have to fine tune the rest of the song so that it worked from a logistical standpoint.

Today is my 201st blog post! Forgot to mention 200 yesterday.

Speak easy,
Neil

Il y a becaucoup je voudrais savoir.

This afternoon I had an appointment with the UK study abroad adviser. It looks like, currently, my options are Nottingham (maybe 100 miles North of London), Lancaster (North Western England), and Swansea (North Eastern Whales). My decision lies solely on the modules (or courses) that each Uni has offered for next semester. The money I currently have in the bank will most likely go to air fare over to the UK. All the preliminary fees can be tagged onto my bursars bill although it looks like I'll probably have to take out something like $15,000 in loans for the excursion (but that is not factoring in an financial aid). If you are still reading this and are still thoroughly interested...it means you are probably my mom.

I'm sick and behind on my French homework but still found the time to spend an hour at Starbucks (tried the new VIA that they have been advertising the hell out of. It wasn't bad.) this afternoon mapping out the novel (working title: Water Wings) I am working on and also the vulgar british sitcom about a group of independent wrestlers (think Entourage meets The Office [UK]) which is maybe half way finished.

If any of my projects have any chance of reaching completion, I decided that I should probably work on each one for at least half an hour every day.

Speak easy,
Neil

Comedy of Errors

Duck/Otter

My whale animation is going slowly because (1) it's incredibly time consuming to figure out how to animate with such complex movement and (2) because when I do get into the mood to focus on something, it usually means I have to focus on my homework. I do, however, have a conception to extend my aquatic themed animation project. The two main characters include a duck and an otter. Yesterday I went through about 6 or 7 different models before I decided on this little guy.

The otter is going to be a little bit more difficult to figure out but I feel like I'm getting pretty close with the one on this page.


Lev says my camera has an incredibly slow ISO. I think, in low light, the low shutter speed can look kind of cool.

Trying to get an on campus job. Apparently the study abroad program is fairly expensive ($150 application fee, $600 deposit, and an estimated $800 in transportation alone). There is also the spending money I will need for an entire semester and books that I'll need to buy when I get there. Worst case scenario I can take out a personal loan or borrow.

Speak easy,
Neil

egg cart

Just witnessed two idiots drive a egg shaped golf cart into a guard rail and run off. One of them bashed their head on the windshield. I guess there are some things that people find amusing that I will never grasp. Lev may have been the only one to alert the authorities.

All of my financial aid stuff is squared away at the moment and now I just have to wait for the sluggish blind octopus that is bureaucracy to set in motion before I can reclaim my post at the cluster office. Need to save and make money for studying abroad.


Finished my bracelet. It's not perfect but it is the largest friendship bracelet I have made to date (15 strings).


Lev's side of the room. He proudly hangs the Russian and Israeli flag, while I have the British and Moldovan flag. You might also notice that he has an affinity for cars. That's kind of his thing.

Someone showed me this website today, which has a bunch of quiz/games. I tried to guess all 151 Pokemon in less than ten minutes but failed. Maybe when I have a clearer head. Also, I have been completely engrossed in the UK teen-drama Skins. Totally fantastic.

Speak easy,
Neil

43 weeks

Today in my English Drama class I learned the difference between a tragic character and a pathetic character. A tragic character, if I can remember correctly, is a character that makes decisions that he probably shouldn't have made that lead to his downfall. A pathetic character is one who has bad times befallen on him that are not a direct consequence of his own actions. The only main difference is that one may still have their dignity by the time the curtain closes.

I went by the study abroad fair and will be looking through the pamphlets this week to choose a school. Instead of picking one nearby my friends who live in Southern England, I have decided to pick the school that I think I will get the most out of. That is to say, I am looking to go into this experience (if everything works out the way I hope it will) to try and make it on my own and see if I can sustain myself (and by that I mean make friends that aren't friends of friends and not get into a really introverted and antisocial state of being) somewhere where I don't know anyone. Ticket prices from London to Romania aren't too unreasonable either. There is a chance that I might try to make my way back to Moldova for a week or so if I have the time and money.



43 weeks of classes left of college.

Speak easy,
Neil

Drinking Tea Makes Everything Better

Ducks are hanging out at the pond again. It seems like ages since I've seen a duck but I'm sure there were a few hanging around the camp. Lately I've been feeling slightly under the weather (I spent almost all day in bed yesterday), but it's mostly just drowsiness. Tomorrow is the last day to pick up or drop out of classes so I will probably looking for an on campus job within the next few days (now that my schedule is not subject to any change). It would be nice to have some more stuff to fill up my schedule because, like I've stated before, the more free time I have, the more free time I waste.

This bird let me get up real close to take a picture of it. I don't know if you can zoom into this pic very much, but it has incredibly pretty eyes.

Lev and I hung the British flag outside our window today and I'm sure it is looking great (although I haven't left the building since I put it up so I haven't actually seen what it looks like yet). Speaking of Britain, the study abroad meeting is tomorrow afternoon so I'm sure I will have an update on my European studies status by tomorrow evening.

Animating the whale has got me thinking about possibly trying to do some sort of aquatic themed short film (the one I have involves a duck and an otter). The way I see it is if I enter an animated film into an independent short film festival, I will get a lot more attention for my work because it is animated. Also I have been tooling around with the idea of writing a horror movie script loosely based on The Creature From The Black Lagoon, although I haven't actually seen The Creature From The Black Lagoon, so I suppose it is safe to say that it is just about a lagoon/lake and a lagoon/lake monster. My only real experience in watching horror movies is Funny Games (which invokes more sadness and pity than fear), Låt den rätte komma in/Let The Right One In, and Shaun of the Dead. I suppose I could try it as a graphic novel, which is a medium that I've always wanted to try but never really had any ideas that would fit.

I was thinking that the song After Hours by Velvet Underground would be an amazing song for a horror movie trailer. Let me know what you think.

Speak easy,
Neil

0

If all twitter users were forced to write in haiku, I would probably be more interested in twitter.


Speak easy,
Neil

The Most Lamentable American Tragedy of Neil Everett

Right now I am working on a terrifically difficult friendship bracelet for a dear friend of mine. It is composed of fifteen strings and is taking quite a bit of time to construct. Just figuring out how to keep the strings separate and organized was a herculean text in and of itself. Hopefully it will be completed within the next few weeks.

The whale animation is going pretty well. All in all I predict it will be about 3-5 seconds in length but I'm sure I will tie the animation itself into a larger project at some point in the future. I am saving the progress of the animation itself every so often so that I can post it up here and show you the process.


It would have really helped if I knew going into the project (1) how a whale is supposed to look, and (2) how a whale is supposed to move. It has been a logistic nightmare as far as redrawing and retroactively altering the look and movement of the creature (but you will see that in time). Drawing some sort of character design sheet would have helped. Overall, I think the whale is a lot cuter than I had originally intended, which I suppose is a good thing.

Playlist:
To Whom It May Concern (or my favorite songs at the moment)

1. The Books feat. Jose Gonzalez - Cello Song (Dark Was The Night Compilation) (Nick Drake Cover)
2. Grizzly Bear vs. The Knife - Heartbeats/Knife Remix
3. Anathollo - The River ([Engine] Glow)
4. Joanna Newsom - Peach, Plum, Pear (The Milk-Eyed Mender)
5. Carla Bruni - Quequ'un M'a Dit (Quequ'un M'a Dit)
6. Velvet Underground - After Hours (Velvet Underground)
7. Cloud Cult - Lucky Today (Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus)
8. The Streets - Heaven For The Weather (Everything Is Borrowed)
9. Dan Deacon - Pink Batman (The Spiderman of the Rings)
10. Joanna Newsom - The Book of Right-On (Walnut Whales)

Embedded youtube links for your navigation convenience.

Speak easy,
Neil

P.S - The title is a reworking of the complete and original title of the Shakespearean play Titus Andronichus, for anyone that would be curious.

Devices

I've spent more time animating whales this semester than I have doing my homework, although I'm sure this statistic will change over the next week. Earlier today I bought a round trip bus ticket to Boston, where I will be spending my weekend.


These two images were born from me playing around on Adobe Photoshop CS3.


Speak easy,
Neil

La Fabuleux Destin

There was a huge poster sale going on today in the Cape Cod Lounge here on campus. I stopped by on the way to my English 300 class. Within thirty seconds I found this Japanese movie poster for the French film La Fabuleux Destin D'Amélie Poulain (or Amélie) which I immediately fell in love with (a phenomenon described by the French as "coup de foudre").


After moving out of the camp this summer I decided to take as little to college as I could get away with. In turn, I neglected to bring any posters from home (sans two small movie posters and a British Flag). I bought this Flight of the Conchords poster the other day to fill some of the empty space on my side of the room.


Here is a picture of my side of the room (just about finished settling in).

In other news, I bought this glass and this tea pot at a yard sale the other day. Definately worth the combined $2.50 that I payed for them. I also found a copy of Salinger's Franny and Zooey for 25 cents.


Finally, I am toying around with the idea of doing a whale themed animation project (now that I have a sufficient Wacom tablet). Here is the first sketch of what should prove to be a very long and labor intensive project.


Speak easy,
Neil

Mount Bosavi

Sobering news from the other side of the world! An area in Papua New Geunia, previously undiscovered by the western world, has revealed to us at least 40 new (new to us anyway) species.



I think that it is great that we are still discovering new things that we didn't know about our planet. It makes me wonder what else there is to find on this, our blue planet. Sometimes it feels like I have discovered all of the music or films or books that I will ever enjoy and then one day I happen upon something truly outstanding that I never knew existed and get incredibly excited about the other potential gold mines there are just waiting to be plundered. Anyway, here are some pictures of my favorite animals nearby Mount Bosavi...





...In other news...$205 for a French text with a bundled work book? And softcover at that.

Speak easy,
Neil

Tattoos

I got lost on the way to Purgatory today. There is a national park area in Massachusetts named Purgatory (which might be because people died climbing up the cliffs). My cousin Brad, his friend Sequoya, and myself spent a good two hours climbing over rocks and crossing rivers.

If I believed in tattoos, these are the tattoos I would get...

1. The main character from The Missing Piece by Shel Silverstein.



2. Jiminy Cricket from Disney's Pinocchio.



3. The Lorax from The Lorax by Dr. Suess.



4. Linus Van Pelt from the Peanuts comic strip.



Each character means a great deal to me, all in their own district ways. Within their given works, they all represent different ideas or conventions that I keep very close to my heart. I suppose I've also had a lasting relationship with all of the characters, in some way shape or form, since I was very young.

Speak easy,
Neil

Cupid

Of all of the statues that I came across in Sarasota, I was most intrigued by this stone gentleman. I forgot to catch his name (or the name of the person he was based off of). The rest the shopping plaza in which Andrew, Dan, and I frequented was crowded with smooth, stone renditions of Roman gods (cupid and venus pictured below).


Although I am thoroughly enamored by all that the stone gentleman represents, at the end of the day I would much rather look at the female statues. They really do portray beauty in a very pure and classic manner.



I ran into this copper toned family when I was making my way from 2nd street to 11th street. Sarasota is very easy to make your way from one place to the next because it is all based on a simple grid system. Within the next 10 years I how to somehow because as comfortable and content as the bronze man appears to be.

Last night I arrived in Rhode Island, where I will be spending a few days until I have to move into my dorm room. This semester I am going to be rooming with Lev again (which is great because a good roommate is hard to come by).

Movies I've seen recently in theaters:

(500) Days of Summer
-Sweet movie. Saw it again this afternoon. Interesting cinematic elements as well as a new twist on the romantic comedy.

Inglourious Basterds
- Everything that I wanted Valkerie to be. Oscar worthy acting from Christoph Waltz (the antagonist). Compelling, smart, and - at times - thought provoking. A little quiter than the trailer would lead you to beleive, although there is still plenty of violence, detatched limbs, and dead nazis. Good movie to see in theaters.

District 9
- One of the most interesting science fiction fiction movies I have seen in a while. Cool and intriguing, with some social commentary thrown in the mix (although it doesn't get preachy like Happy Feet does). Not a film to pass up by any means.

Up
- If you haven't seen this film already, go see it. It's not often that I cry during a film, especially during a childrens film (especially during the first 20 minutes of a film). Possibly my favorite Pixar film thus far.

Speak easy,
Neil