Wow well we're almost done with the short film, and that's pretty fun. I mean, it was really fun to do it, and I'm going to miss it, but like it'll be nice to get it over with and then be done with the year you know. So Connor is doing most of the editing at home, so I haven't really been doing any of that at all, but he shows us how it's going every now and then and it's coming along pretty well, which is exciting.

We still have to find a good song, which is taking a little bit longer than anticipated. We want the song to be really perfect, so we're taking our time to choose it you know. But after that, we're pretty much done. Connor did the poster, so that's done too, and it looks pretty cool. I'm excited, everything is coming along really nicely and it's really fantastic!

This is my update on our short film. Me and a couple of other people are making a short movie from a short story that Zoe wrote, and it's going really well. We have our rough cut assembled, and it looks really great! Props to Connor for that since he's the one who's doing most of that. We've got most of our scenes all worked out, we just need to cut down the intro and also work on some of the order of some of the main stuff. Other than that though, it's really great.

We do still have to find some good music. I mean, we do have some awesome music for the introduction but that's like happy music and we need to find some more depressing music for the main scene. Hopefully Jordan will be able to do some really cool music stuff and make the songs meld into each other. That would be cool, I'm hoping we can do that. Other than music and working on the editing, we're basically done. Which is really awesome yay!

Well I was going to write this blog post about my weekly documentary update, but then Youtube told me that Vampire Weekend was having a live concert so I'm writing about that instead because I mean woah. I'm watching it now and let me tell you it is pretty exciting to be able to watch one of your favorite bands play live without paying any money at all. I mean, I suppose you could argue that we have to pay for the internet, but that's really my parents paying for that. They're playing another new song now aaahhh! See they're doing this because they have a new album coming out, called Modern Vampires of the City, and they're released two of the songs on it already, but that's all. And now in this concert they're playing a bunch of the new songs from that album and it's really great. I don't know, everything about this is really great. Chris's (the drummer) drums are glittery and Ezra (the lead singer) gave a shout out to Ian Rubbish (Ian Rubbish is a character in an SNL skit that spoofs the punk scene in the UK).

I think it's really cool how there's all these concerts being streamed now (THEY'RE PLAYING A-PUNK NOW WOW OK EXCITING), because it really broadens the music scene up to everyone. A lot of music festivals do live streaming, like Coachella just did it a little bit ago. I think it's really great because it allows really dedicated fans a way to interact with some of their favorite bands, and feel like they're a part of the group oH HEY STEVE BUSCEMI JUST CAME OUT ONSTAGE. There's another part of this (wow now he's singing you go stevie) is that it allows for the bands to really get press out. I saw at least 20 ads for this watching Youtube today, and that really increases the chances of a person who hadn't heard about Vampire Weekend before deciding to maybe give them a chance, which is great for the band. So really it's great for everyone involved.

I should probably explain why Steve Buscemi was there. See, American Express does a lot of these streamed concerts, and they have bands pair with a famous actor who will direct the streaming thing. Although in reality I don't really know what they do, the fact that a big name actor is involved also increases awareness and could lead to more fans for the band. So again, this is really good for everyone involved. This is the link to watch it here, if you happen to be reading this on Sunday April 28th: http://www.youtube.com/americanexpressmusic
and here's a trailer for the concert since you want these posts to have videos imbedded Mr. Mayo:

This weekend was Maryland Youth & Government's annual meeting or summit or something I don't really know what to call it. Basically students from high schools all across Maryland meet in Annapolis, at the state house, and we are basically a mock Maryland legislature. There's a House and a Senate and lobbyists and pages and this year there was a court system too. It's really pretty cool, I mean if government stuff is interesting to you. If not you'd probably find it really boring.

So everyone is assigned into a group, like they're assigned to be a lobbyist or a delegate or press or something else, and then once they get to Annapolis they all do something different. I was a delegate, so I was a member of the House and the Committee on the Environment and Natural Resources. I did write a bill, which would have reformed Maryland's power companies. But it didn't pass committee.   :(

So the schedule of my weekend at least was like this: we spent most of Saturday in committee debating bills, but Saturday night we were in the House debating bills that had passed committee. On Sunday it was mostly debating in the House, but there was an hour in committee in the morning. There was also an ice cream social on Saturday night and a banquet/dance on Sunday night. And then finally on Monday morning/part of Monday afternoon, we finished up debate in the House.

We did spend a lot of time just sitting in the House or in our committee rooms debating bills, which sounds really boring I guess. But actually a lot of the bills were super interesting and it was a lot of fun, although you would have to be into this in the first place to enjoy it. But the chairs in the state house are ridiculously comfortable so that helps when we have to talk about the bills that are like changing the requirements for historic cars (which was an actual bill (I think it passed)). So overall, while you get little to no sleep and there are some moments when five minutes feel like five hours, there were coffee makers in the hotel rooms and those moments happened very few times. And it was just super fun. You should join next year.

Not sure if we're supposed to write a post this week or not, but just in case, here is my post. So I'm reading this book called Connectome: How the Brain's Wiring Makes Us Who We Are, by a neuroscientist by the name of Sebastian Seung. I'm only about 100 pages in, but so far it's pretty cool. Basically the book is detailing theory of connectomics (pronounced like genomics). Connectomics says that people are who they are because of the unique connections between the neurons in their brains. It's basically an extension of genomics, except it's much harder to prove.

See the way our technology is right now, we can't really map the human brain easily or quickly. And since each human brain is different, you would have to map a bunch of different brains before you could really prove that connectomics is really true in any way. See there's two different theories in how our brains make us who we are, because they definitely have something to do with why every person is unique.

The first, and oldest, theory is phrenology. It states that each part of the brain has a specific function relating to it's size and place, I'm pretty sure that's it anyway. See I'm not so sure because it's evolved a lot over the years. It started out as just plain old bigger brains = smarter people, but then that turned out to be not true. There are some statistical correlations between size and certain traits, but those correlations only work over a large general population. When you try to use them to predict anything about a specific person it all goes to hell. But another part of the phrenology theory is that specific parts of the brain do specific things, and that's true. There are definitely parts in your brain that control language and other parts that control your hand and feet and everything else and other parts that control who the hell knows man the brain is uncharted territory. But that theory is too simplistic, and the brain can rewire itself so that no one part of the brain is just linked to one specific function. After someone has an amputation, the part of their brain that controlled their hand that they just lost will be taken over parts of their brain.

So phrenology is too simplistic, but you can actually prove it. Like if a guy can't speak and then you do an autopsy on him and find a hole in his brain you can safely say that that hole is where the language center should be (actual example of 19th century brain science). And this is where connectomics comes in. It's a pretty great explanation, it makes sense you know. Seeing the way our genes work, it makes pretty good sense. Also there's some other scientific reasons that the author talks about but I can't really remember those. Anyway the point is that it makes sense, but there's no good way to prove it. Ok so example. There's this little tiny worm that doesn't actually really have a brain, it just sort of has a collection of neurons, 700 if I can remember correctly. And then from that there's like a million connections between all of the neurons. And so mapping this took a decade. Now there's a hundred billion neurons in the human brain, and I don't know how many connections there are but it's going to be a huge number so mapping it is going to take forever and while our technology is better than in the nineties when the worm-brain mapping was going on, it's still not quite ready and it's still going to take forever.

So that's where I am in the book right now, my guess is that next he's going to talk more about connectomics and how it could be proven. Anyway, it's really interesting. That's all k bye.

Whose Line Is It Anyway was a comedy improv show from the nineties, and also two-thousands that was hilarious and amazing and oh so wonderful. And it's coming back!!!!!!

So first some history and a basic introduction for those poor unfortunate souls who haven't heard of Whose Line. It was and will be an improv comedy show. Improv is a form of theater where basically you're given a prompt and then you have to make everything else up. For example, in Whose Line, there's a thing called Scenes From A Hat where audience members write down things like people who you wouldn't expect to be president, and then the four improv actors come up and say things like hitler or whatever. So there's four improv performer people in each show, and then there's Drew Carey as the host and he gives them queues and stuff. And mostly everyone is just really funny. That's all.

Ok so this week Colin Mochrie, who was one of the performers, tweeted and he was like HEY GUYS WHOSE LINE IS COMING BACK and so everyone was like WHAAAAT. And then it was confirmed, and there's going to be a new host, some lady named Aisha Tyler, and it's going to be coming back this summer which is really exciting and I am very excited. Well that's it basically, so here's a video of the episode when they had Robin Williams on (all the episodes are on youtube by the way)

My mom and I went to go see an exhibit of Ai Weiwei's art this Saturday. It closes today so you all missed it. Which is too bad because it as a really good exhibit. And Ai Weiwei is a really good artist. It was at the Hirschhorn which is also a really cool museum. So all around it was really cool.

Basically Ai Weiwei does a lot of protest art against the Chinese government, so he gets put under house arrest a lot which means he has even more time to make art I guess. A lot of his art involves taking an object that is pretty meaningful, and giving it a new meaning. Like he has this one piece called Straight, where he took metal rebar pieces from collapsed schools from the 2008 earthquake and then turned them into this sort of map of a division symbolizing both the earthquake, and also the division in society. It's pretty cool looking.

A lot of his art, at least in this exhibit, was influenced by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. It killed a lot of people, many of them children. This was because many of the schools had been really badly constructed so they just fell down pretty much. And other buildings nearby hadn't just fallen down like that, so that pointed to cutting corners and really bad construction where that shouldn't have happened.  And then the one-child policy meant that a lot of families lost their only child. So basically it was a really big, terrible horrific thing. Something like 5,000 children died due to the terrible schools. One of Ai Weiwei's most moving pieces, for me at least is this one giant snake that he made. At first you're like oh wow that's pretty cool it's a giant snake. But then you see that's it's made out of backpacks, one for each child who died in the earthquake. And it's a really big snake, too.

Well those were some of the newer Ai Weiwei art pieces. Of course there was the one where he drops the ancient Ming vase, and all the other Ming vase desecration pieces (they're really cool). If this art sounds interesting to you, I would recommend the documentary "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry". It's on Netflix instant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdNZ5vXWMxQ

I have to give you the link because that's the only way I can get it into the video. Sorryyy.

This week the British kids are here, and they're leaving on Sunday, but it was really fun. I had one stay at my house, her name is Emily, and we're totally best friends now. So for film class, we did this project where instead of continuing on with our boring documentaries, we worked on these new fun projects. Everyone got into groups, and then each group got assigned a prop. Our prop was this postal service box filled with tubes and beakers and some weird clocks and also some fairy wands.

So then we had to brainstorm ideas. Most of our ideas revolved around aliens or spaceships or something like that, but seeing as it would be really complicated to actually film a 60 short set in a spaceship and make it look believable, we decided that instead we would go with a mad scientist who makes an android, then falls in love with the android, but the android doesn't know what love is, so the scientist teaches the android how to love with computer coding and a montage, and so the android finally learns to love but once it does it dumps the scientist for some other guy. And then we had to write our script.

We decided that our film was going to be silent because that's just so much easier. So we wrote out a basic script that was pretty much all just description of what was going on, then we did our shot list, and then we did our storyboard and it all turned out beautifully. So then the next day, we borrowed a room from the science teachers, and I got a lab coat (it was so much fun to wear), and then we set about filming. We had to come in after school to film the rest of our movie because it took us a while to figure out how to work out Katie's mom's complicated camera, but once we did, everything was fine.

So we had all our film, and then we set about to editing. We decided to use color correction, so that as the android learns to love the colors slowly turn from colder colors to warmer colors. I'm really glad we thought of that, because that made our short look so much nicer. We also had this thing where after the robot leaves the scientist, it goes to black-and-white. That also looked really cool.

Everything turned out really nicely, and I'm really glad we got a chance to do it. It was a nice break from the documentaries, and it was also just really fun. So after this we go back to documentaries, and then from there on to CAP Hollywood which I am quite excited about. Second semester in general sounds really fun. We could make really amazing films for CAP Hollywood if we put the effort into it, and that's exciting to me.

Anyway, hope you liked the short, and I hope I wrote about everything I was supposed to write about in this post.

For me, downtown Silver Spring is really kind of boring. It's mostly just the movie theater, some restaurants, and a couple of stores. Really it's just a place to go with your friends, but you'd rather be somewhere else because there's nothing to do. Although maybe I don't know the right places or something. Anyway, I live really close to a metro station, and so for me, Washington, D.C. is a lot more interesting than Silver Spring. There's soooo much more to do in D.C., and in general it's just way more interesting. I go to D.C. more often, and it's a lot easier to go to D.C. without other people than it is to go to Silver Spring by yourself. And my friends don't always like going places. Sooo this weekend I went to the National Gallery of Art, and took a lot of video of art, but my camera died before I got the impressionist section or the only Da Vinci in the U.S. or all the weird Renaissance art. So it goes. But I still had a fun time, and there was an unfinished Michelangelo statue, the David-Apollo which is so named because it is either David or Apollo. That was really awesome, but again, dead camera so you don't get to see it unless you use Google.

(I think the video might be private but YouTube won't let me sign in so I can't do anything about it sorryy)

The paintings and two sculptures featured in this video are, in order of appearance:

The Return of Rip Van Winkle by John Quidor
Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan by Thomas Gainsborough
Shaw Memorial by Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Lake Lucerne by Albert Bierstadt
The Abduction of Europa by Jean François De Troy
Señora Sabasa Garcia by Franciso de Goya
The Washington Family by Edward Savage
A Young Man in a Large Hat by Frans Hals
Captain Patrick Miller by Sir Henry Raeburn
The Mill by Rembrandt Van Rijn
Miss Beatrix Lister by Sir Joshua Reynolds
The Skater (Portrait of William Grant) by Gilbert Stuart
Sir Joshua Reynolds by Gilbert Stuart
The Voyage of Life by Thomas Cole
The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries by Jacques-Louis David
Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight by Joseph Mallord William Turner
David In The Lion's Den by Sir Peter Paul Rubens
Young Girl Reading by Jean Honoré Fragonard
Voltaire by Jean-Antoine Houdon
The Fall of Phaeton by Sir Peter Paul Rubens
Madame Moitessier by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

Yaaaay it's a new year, we get to write 2013 on our papers now. Alright, well, it was also Christmas too, and so this post is kind of Christmas-y I guess. See, my neighbors across the street have this fantastic lights and inflatable Christmas display, and they also play the best music! It's so wonderful (that was all sarcasm)! But their displays bring up some questions. See, I mentioned that they have Christmas inflatables (they have inflatables for every season). And they're also really into hunting. Sooo.....

I know it's really blurry, but that right there is a snowman with a gun. Also Santa in what I am told is a deer blind. Santa also has a gun, and he's joined in his cheery deer blind by a penguin, and there's a deer down below who looks really terrified (it has bugged out eyed. Santa's seems pretty happy though, and the snowman is smiling). It used to be just the snowman, but they got the deer blind Santa this year. Whenever anyone drives by their house, they slow down and stare because why wouldn't you (some neighborhood gossip: apparently the guy once had a dead deer hanging up in his back yard and it was dripping blooood, because I guess that's what you do to dead deer)?

Anyway, (that was an introduction) I thought I would write about this because it's a freedom of speech issue. Where I live, it's pretty liberal, and these Christmas inflatables seem offensive to us. I mean, Santa Claus is going hunting. And yet we're granted the freedom of speech in the Constitution, and we've come to interpret that as everything but hate speech. But then what's hate speech? Usually, in the law at least, it's defined as any form of words that incite violence or prejudicial actions. So in that context, deer blind Santa doesn't seem like hate speech. Maybe if he were actually killing the deer, and there were blood and guts and stuff. But deer blind Santa is kind of sweet looking and cartoony, and so is the shooting snowman (who isn't actually shooting that's just what we call him). So it seems kind of weird and offensive to my liberal sensibilities, but it's really not that bad.

Of course, I had planned to write this before Sandy Hook happened. After that having happened, it seems a lot worse. The neighbors have had them up since long before the shooting, and haven't taken them down yet. I still don't think it qualifies as hate speech, since it wasn't in retaliation to the shootings, and it doesn't really have anything to do with the shooting beside the guns. Seeing as I had basically written everything before the shootings, but this post deals with guns, I wanted to make sure I addressed if anything changed after the Sandy Hook shootings.