I watched my pretty much all time favorite movie for about the millionth time today, and as I was finishing it, I thought, "Hey now I know what to write for my blog post." Yes yes so today our topic is the best movie ever, CRY-BABY YEAH. So there's greaser (they're called drapes) named Wade "Crybaby" Walker, and he's played by young Johnny Depp (swoon). And then this square, Allison Vernon-Williams (Amy Locane) is all I'M SO TIRED OF BEING GOOD (direct quote. as I said before, I've watched this movie a loooot), and she runs away but her boyfriend is mad, you know. Typical.

 It's directed by John Waters, and is a satire of Grease and musicals like Grease and the 1950s. It makes fun of the stereotypes of the super goody two shoes kids, and the burning-cars-for-fun kids too. Also, I really like the music. It's good, man. Since this is technically a review, I shall now review it. See this movie, this wonderful movie is a really good satire, but it also manages to still be a good movie. It's got character development, and some wonderfully camp and also some just wonderful normal lines. And there's a great car chase (sort of) scene, and then a great prison break scene so that checks some boxes. The acting's also pretty overdramatic and great which is as it should be.

So yes that is pretty much all I have to say about this movie, and it is fabulous, and you should watch it, and here is the trailer and it's great.

Yes ok and now this is the end.

Yes so we're supposed to write blog posts every week, but no one told me to my face, so I just didn't and forgot and everything was terrible but that's an exaggeration, it was more like mildy bad. Anyway, this is my first weekly blog post even though I was supposed to start like a month ago. So I'm going to write about this video, which is basically just an ad for Barney's (it's also supposed to reference Disney's famous Electrical Parade).

It's actually just really boring and long, and the awful part only comes towards the end, so I'll summarize it for you. Baasically Minnie Mouse, the beloved children's character sees this dress in a window, and she's like wow that's really wonderful I wish I could wear that but I guess to wear that I would have to be a model in Paris. I don't really know, basically she ends up in Paris and there's fashion runways and paparazzi, and a bunch of animated people who I'm pretty sure are supposed to be actual people but I don't know anything about the fashion world so I can't recognize any of them. I think I saw the cast of Sex and the City though. Anyway, so basically she goes to this fashion runway show, and there's Daisy Duck, and Goofy, and Cruella De Ville and Tiana (The Princess and The Frog) and everyone is getting their makeovers. So everything is fine until they get to the actual runway. And then little Minnie Mouse walks out onto the stage, and suddenly she's transformed into this rail-thin anorexic dead-eyed model. The same thing happens to all the other characters (and really, they didn't choose the best characters to be models anyway. Cruella De Ville is a villain, and Goofy is just a mess (his outfit is really awful too)).

So if you don't already know what the problem is with this video (well, actually multiple problems), I'll just let you know. Minnie and the others are supposed to be children's characters. Innocent, pure, honest, good, and all those other 1950s values. Children's characters are very unsexy, because they're for little children. And yet, Barney's has sexed up sweet little Minnie Mouse. The way they've done it is also quite disturbing. If anyone actually did watch the video, then they probably notice how skinny everyones legs and just generally their whole entire bodies were. Barney's and whoever was in charge of this video made Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck and Tiana and everyone else anorexic in their attempts to make them looks sexy. The first thing might not bother some people, but the second one is really just bad. Oh and that's not even the worst. Ready?

“When we got to the moment when all Disney characters walk on the runway, there was a discussion. The standard Minnie Mouse will not look so good in a Lanvin dress. There was a real moment of silence, because these characters don’t change. I said, ‘If we’re going to make this work, we have to have a 5-foot-11 Minnie,’ and they agreed. When you see Goofy, Minnie and Mickey, they are runway models.”

That is a quote from Barney's creative director, denis Freedman. So Minnie Mouse isn't thin enough, or tall enough to wear your dresses? And the only solution is to make her an anorexic model? That's a great message to send to little girls, who adore Minnie Mouse. Their hero has to change her body type just to wear a dress. But once she's skinny and tall, everyone loves her. Of course I suppose I shouldn't really be surprised. That's already what girls get told. Still, this just seems like a step up from everything else. If Minnie Mouse can be slimmed down in a short for a department store, what's to stop it from happening to just regular Minnie, and other children's characters. But still, it could have been worse. I will leave you with the conceptual drawings to contemplate.

Here is my Capture the Fall video. Finally. It's quite lovely. I used my iPhone, and then my iPhone didn't work, so that's why it's this late. There were actual real technical difficulties, I'm not just making it up. So this is a video of my trip to my dads house in New Hampshire, which is why it's called Fall in New Hampshire. 

Tada.

Sorry Mr. Mac, but I'm going to write this post about the great and wonderful Nikola Tesla (credit for inspiration to Brianna). Because he doesn't get the credit he deserves. This post will go in chronological order of his life, so lets start with the early life of this genius.
He was born in 1856 in Serbia, in the little town of Smiljan, which is a pretty great name. His father was a priest, and according to Wikipedia, his mother had a talent for memorizing epic Serbian poems. She seems like a pretty cool lady. But this post isn't about her, it's about her child. Who was accused of cheating by his teachers because he could do calculus in his head. Yeah, you know. Just calculus. So after an eventful early life in Serbia (it's actually really interesting, but really long, and I won't get into it here), he moved to New York City in 1884, when he was 28, to go and work for Thomas Edison. Because that's what young inventors would do in those days. Edison's place was where it was at for inventors, because Edison was like God. So off Tesla went, to go and work with the great and powerful Thomas Edison. But Edison and Tesla viewed inventing very differently. Edison was much more of a trial and error kind of guy, but Tesla could envision his inventions in his head, and solve all possible problems there too. So they fought a lot.
When Tesla arrived, Edison was working on direct current generators, which is a type of electricity. These were reeeaally inefficient, and Tesla, kind gent that he was, offered to fix them up. Edison told him that if he could do it, he would pay Tesla fifty thousand dollars. In today's money, that's a million dollars. A couple months later, when Tesla did what he said he would, did Edison pay up, like he said he would? No. He said "Tesla, you don't understand our American humor." And then offered Tesla a small raise. Yes, Edison really did. So of course Tesla left.
He formed his own company, and started working on an alternating current generator. Alternating current is another form of electricity. This pitted him in a "War of the Currents" against Edison. But Edison's direct current required expensive copper cables to be buried in the streets with power stations every mile because direct current electricity cannot travel very far. So Edison's method was expensive and basically very pointless, but of course he couldn't admit defeat to the much cheaper and much less expensive to install alternating current. Never! Instead, he started electrocuting animals. Because of course. His plan was to show how dangerous alternating current was, when in fact direct current and alternating current are basically the same level of dangerousness, and he was using a much higher level of wattage than would actually be sent through wires into people's homes. But electrocuting elephants really makes a statement, so no one would buy into alternating current. But through several exhibitions, like the 1893 Chicago World's fair, Tesla was able to show the world that no, alternating current didn't electrocute animals. Come on, Edison.
But that's not even all he did. He invented the radio. No, Guglielmo Marconi did not invent the radio. As Nikola Tesla said, "Marconi is a good fellow. Let him continue. He is using seventeen of my patents." (so in case you didn't get that, Marconi stole ideas from Tesla). Tesla also invented a spark plug for internal combustion engines in 1898, pitched the idea of radar to the U.S. military in 1917 (Edison was the head of R&D for the U.S. Navy though, and he just couldn't let that grudge go), started experimenting with x-rays two years before Wilhelm Rontgen (the guy who is credited with the discovery of x-rays) announced his discovery (at first, it was believed x-rays could cure ailments, but Tesla cautioned against it. Guess who ignored that? Edison x-rayed his lab assistant so much that the assistant had to have his arms amputated, and then later died of mediastinal cancer (your mediastinum is basically the cavity where your heart is). Edison also almost blinded himself by repeatedly x-raying his eyes. He is then later quoted as saying "Don't talk to me about x-rays, I am afraid of them."), built the first hydro-electric plant at Niagara plant, recorded radio waves from outer space, discovered the resonant frequency of Earth (it actually took 50 years for scientists to verify something Tesla had found out in 1890), built an earthquake machine that nearly demolished one of New York City's neighborhoods, successfully produced the extremely rare phenomenon of ball lightning (Nikola Tesla did it in the 1890s, but no one has been able to recreate it since), he held patents a hundred years ago that are now used to make transistors (an important component of computers), invented remote control, and sooo many other things. Basically he's a genius.
So what happens next is a little surprising. He has his moment in the sun, get's invited to all the parties, has fun electrical experiments with his best buddy Mary Twain (yeah). But Tesla was never the best business man, and his ideas were not really the best business. So he lost a lot of money. He ended up living alone in a little New York apartment, talking to pigeons and living off of Nabisco crackers. He died when he slipped and hit his head on ice, got back up, and walked to his apartment. He died unrecognized for all of his achievements, all of his contributions, all of his discoveries, everything that he did. It's really pretty sad.
So this is Nikola Tesla awareness post. Because he should be at least as well known Thomas Edison, if not more so. Recently, over one million dollars was raised to turn his old laboratory, Wardenclyffe, where, by the way, he planned to produce free energy for the entire world. See, the things he invented are just endless. Oh, the death ray story is really good, you should go look that one up because I should probably stop. Basically, Nikola Tesla deserves to be remembered. And this is certainly not really well written, but I think it conveys the idea of how smart he was well enough for me to be able to tell you that there's not a reason why Nikola Tesla shouldn't be a household name.

So I would like to redo yesterday's post, if possible. I had just gotten back from an impromptu doctors visit, and I didn't know what to write about, and I was watching Freaks and Geeks so I decided to write about that even though I couldn't really write about why I liked it. But now I have thought about an actual topic, so I'm going to write about that, and then maybe we can just pretend that the other post didn't happen. By we I mean myself and Mr. Mayo. So basically what I'm saying is I would like you to grade this one instead, please. Here it is.

Basically I'm writing about the future, more specifically my fears about it and even more specifically my fears about college and then getting a job after that. I've been told for so long that I can do whatever I want to, when I grow up I can be whatever I want because I'm just so amazingly special. But actually, now that it's almost about to happen, it really doesn't look that way. It looks like I'm going to have to work really hard to get into college, work really hard and acquire massive debts in college, and then spend the rest of my life trying to find steady work and paying off college loans. My family is pretty well off, but even so, we're not well off enough to pay my way through college. I think I've got like 10,000 in my college account. That's enough for maaaybe a semester. And I want to be a neurologist, which means med school, which means at least 10-13 years of college, including getting a bachelors. I have to get my bachelors, then go to med school for four years for a medical degree, and then complete a three or four year residency. For the class of 2009, the average debt of a med student was $157,990, and 25.1% of med school graduates have debt in excess of $200,000 (Association of American Medical Colleges). And the average cost of going to medical school has risen 5-6% each year (also Association of American Medical Colleges). And then once I get out of college, I have to find a job. And currently, 53.6% of college grads, with a bachelors, 25 and under are unemployed or underemployed (I couldn't find one about med students) (Census Bureau's Current Population Survey and the Department of Labor). So that's not exactly comforting. And who knows if I'm even going to get into college in the first place. I can add that to my pile of worry. This is not exactly a good time to be going to college. Although, who knows. Maybe by the time I'm done with my 10-13 years of college, it'll be better.

Oh yes, and here is my media element. It is a picture that I found, that I think pretty accurately shows why I am worried and why everything is terrible no that last part isn't true but I'm still worried.

We have been instructed to write about anything that we want to. I FEEL SO LIBERATED. So what I've decided to write about is....yes, it is the show Freaks and Geeks. Even though it's set in the 1980s, it is very relatable. Also, young Seth Rogen, young James Franco, young Jason Segal. The other people didn't go on to become famous, but they're good actors too. It's an awesome show is what i'm saying. There's only eighteen episodes though, which is really disappointing. My god though, those episodes are good.

Edit: this is the shortest post I've ever written, and it's about something I want to write about. Just an observation.

I haven't really had a chance to work with my dystopian trailer group, since I missed a lot of last week, but what I have done is scriptwriting. A lot of the lines that were written were long and awkward, and so I tried to shorten them down, so they would work. In our script, we have a government that is brainwashing people, a police force that is making people conform and chasing them down if they don't, and a reference to a leader who is worshipped. That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Our trailer is told from the perspective of Student A45, so that's how the story will be told. Through her experiences. It's in a chronological order. So she starts off conforming, but with a feeling that something is wrong. And then she finds a book, which spurs her to become more revolutionary. And the trailer ends with a dramatic finish when she is caught by the police. All told, that's eight scenes. I think it's going to turn out nicely. The end.