This is part 3 - yes, part 3 - of me recapping a SINGLE COMMERCIAL and pointing out all the dense stupidity in this thing. It's not an easy job, because thanks to the power of editing in images that go by so fast they only last one frame, you can pack in as much ignorance as possible! At the end of the last episode, I made the connection to one Chuck Bartowski, who will remember every single image in this commercial and be able to translate them into a detailed account of espionage. And he also knows kung-fu now, apparently. Awesome show. Anyways, before reading this, read the other entries. It's really supposed to be one big thing, but Soundclick has a character limit. As a begin again to document our manic slideshow of nonsense, I just happen to freezeframe on a forest fire. Wow. Apparently humanity is now to blame for forest fires. I think they were sorta counting on no one caring enough to pause the video. As much as this carelessness saddens me, what really ignites the red matter in my soul is the fact that on the page where I'm watching the video, they're advertising the fact that they apparently got Harrison Ford to voiceover some of their ads. I'm trying to see what their reasoning is here: unconvincing, ignorant, laughable ad + Harrison = $$$? I love Harrison's movies, he's a good actor. I think environmentalism is great, a worthy goal of anyone with a heartbeat. The Intersect Commercial, as I call it, is a joke. And now for our child actor moment, because she's so sweet and innocent. I think this is the same mindset in movies where the director apparently thinks we'll feel no sympathy for a doomed character/extra if they're not a perfect person. Because if a child misbehaves, she apparently deserves it when she falls down an elevator shaft onto melting metal spikes. Get used to the way I'm using the word "apparently," folks, because I'm probably going to use it a bunch more times before I'm done. As for the little girl's line, it goes like this: "You promised me the world, [media] , is this what you had in mind?" And that last part of the line really makes me laugh, because in a single frame I can point out an example of pretty much everything wrong with the commercial at once. Let's see - precocious cute little darlin' as a voice of propaganda? Check. Is she holding a teddy bear? My God, she is! Truly this is one of the oldest and cheapest ways to try to induce pathos in an audience. Ooh, do we have a picture of a completely deforested area full of nothing but stumps? You betcha. And just for a dose of reality, that overlay most likely is a photo taken in another country, where we have absolutely no jurisdiction. Even in the states where it's legal, you can't really do that stuff anymore in the states. If the cops don't getcha, the environmentalists will. Unfortunately the biggest problem this suffers is the same problem as most of their photos: if it's in the states, it's likely land marked out specifically for planting and harvesting trees. So these guys are getting replaced, because that's good for the Earth. They're doing exactly what our eco-friendly buddies say they should do. And that's why their tree plantation is a symbol of the reckless oppression and rape of our Mother Earth. To close up, we get a stop-motion shot of a tree growing in someone's hand, with more intersect footage (too blurred to see, but WE HAVE THE FOOTAGE! It's like trying to blackmail someone by getting footage of him getting out of a limo, then holding up a blank tape yelling that you have more. No thinking person would buy your claim that he's cheating on his wife). Also, we finally meet Harrison Ford on the audio track (which has finally realized how ridiculous the violin music was and has switched to something more demure). Honestly, other than the vagueness of the backgro

So anyways, if your car was made in the last twenty years or so, you're pretty much off the hook as far as polluting. You may not get the greatest gas mileage, but even the dreaded Hummer doesn't make that big a difference to the local flora and fauna. So even in their most uselessly pollutive state - a rush-hour dead-stop parking lot traffic jam at least a hundred cars long - you're still not toxifying the atmosphere by a significant margin. You may as well tax people for breathing - oh, nevermind. They're ACTUALLY PLANNING ON DOING THAT. Whenever it sounds like I'm ticked off at environmentalism, these are the people I'm really mad at. I will gladly cut down on my water use, within reason. Same for electricity. I'll definitely put in the efficient CFL bulbs. I have a problem with the people who don't tack a "within reason" onto their conservational goals, and give hell to the people who do. It's vegetarianism all over again. I'm a vegetarian, but that's personal choice. I'm not gonna force anyone not to eat meat, or act all condescending 'cause they do. I don't shove my beliefs down people's throats (heh he I made a funny). But some people do, which is why I used to get a lot of recoil from it. "Oh, you're a vegetarian? Whatcha gonna do, make me eat beans the rest of my life?" "What? No! I never said..." Not only that, but the vegans often do the same thing to vegetarians for not going all the way. So all in all, a better analogy than I expected. I am now on the Earthshare website, trying to track down the commercial so I can get some freeze-frames.Good gosh, it's so generic that it might as well be a major corporation. Except it takes donations. Oh wait, major corporations do that too! Blah blah bailout blah. After searching around I've found their PSA stash, and the more I research, the shadier this company seems. Supposedly it's a whole bunch of eco-corporations operating under one roof, but you can't have that without in-office politics that will eventually root out all the member with integrity so they can be dealt with. Not only that, but every one of these commercials is just as stupid, from what I'm seeing so far. I'm only recapping the one, but I could make a business out of this, is all I'm sayin'. Watch them yourself (http://earthshare.org/news-and-media.html), they're at the bottom of the page and they are hilarious. Except "This is," which actually manages to break the trend to a degree, despite the horrifying transitions between animals. Ooh, goody, I found mine! It is called "Promises." Maybe it's the quality of this video, but I'm having a horrible time making out these "scary" images. I now notice the ridiculous, overblown dramatic music. They might as well have an orchestral score pieced together from foreboding classical music, it would be just as pretentious and out-of-context but about 3 times as good. Let's see, what do we have that's onscreen long enough to identify (youtube, your quality auto-reduction is a blessing and a curse)... A sign that says, "DANGER! UNSAFE WATER!" I wouldn't be surprised if this was posted near an outhouse, especially since we apparently aren't allowed to see it in context (an unconscious decision, perhaps, but to me it still reeks of Stalinism). Now we have... WTF? A country road? What is so horrifying and galvanizing about a road leading into a small town? I understand the advertising agency they use is pro bono, and likely made up mostly of well-meaning college students, but COME ON. I have not yet graduated high school and I could edit something together better than this. While half asleep, or in the process of being beaten to death by three monkeys. Ooh, apparently they are associating the smokestack with the ceiling fan! How "artistic!" And the editing is so frenetic, I only noticed this because I'm freeze-framing. Even then, though, it's like watchin

By the mercy of the elders, we have reached the end of this phase of training. Let me translate that from Stargate-ese: We learned a bunch of useless stuff, a few good things to know, made some friends, and now we are taking a break from the whole tiresome business for a couple months. I, for one, am excited, There are a ton of things I want to do, the top things on the list being watching Stargate SG-1 and composing music. Plus I'm going to be in the County Fair with my dance class, performing some of the easier dances we know. And Maple Leaf Rag, which several of us (including myself) apparently only "mostly" know. But it's going to be fun. For the time being, though, I plan on doing nothing that requires effort so I can recover from a long school year. This is why music comes second to movies, for the time being. I'm not lazy so much as burnt out. Speaking of SG-1, I was watching today on Hulu (I'm starting from the pilot, you see, which was really lame but the series does improve), and in a commercial break, there was this really lame "eco-mercial." I have nothing wrong with being environmentally friendly and efficient, as they are noble goals when done for the right reasons. But the ignorance displayed proudly like a peacock's plumage was too much for me to pass up with out ripping on it a little and therefore making a semipermanent record of it. Okay, so maybe you've seen it before: ceiling fan, girl on her bed, superimposed images of our environment going to hell in a handbasket, girl says faux-poignant line at the end, and we finally find out what they're advertising (some sort of conservation fund or something, at this point I stopped caring). So yes, it's a mindless piece of trash that jumps on the ecology bandwagon without clearly outlining its goals or how the branding/brainwashing sequence at the beginning correlates to the company named in the last 5 seconds. Yes it's got the distinct taste of corporate juice all over it, and it's rather dumb, but this is par for course when it comes to advertising. At least they use complete sentences (can you tell that perfume commercials bug the heck out of me?). Here's my big problem with it: the superimposed images. The very first image (in saturated false-color, no less, as all the images will be, to contrast with the stark white room and dress of the girl), the first image we see blanketed over the creepy superhygenic cleanroom is a landscape of silhouetted smokestacks letting off chemicals into the air at a frightening density. I have to pause here and call some major BS (For those who don't like the term, mentally substitute it for "Bible Studies."). Okay,the modern smokestack itself is designed to be MORE eco-friendly than just piping exhaust straight into the sky. Smokestacks clean the really bad stuff out before it starts killing the wildlife. That's why they have to be cleaned on schedule, because of all the toxic stuff that builds up in the smokestack, instead of on baby pandas. Not only that, but there are only a few industries that produce smoke that thick - and one of them is biomass. Considering how many industries want their smokestacks videoed for an eco-mercial, it probably IS biomass. The thought is simultaneously sad and hilarious. Next few images include a barrel of green chemical slime dumping into a creek (come on guys, for the love of Barney this is so obviously staged, and it makes you guilty of pouring a foreign chemical in the water if you didn't Photoshop it), let's see, a freeway with a bunch of cars on it, a - hold on, WHAT? I call another BS straw man on this one. I thought by now everyone knows that cars barely pollute at all anymore. You know when they say things like, "enacting this measure is like taking six bajillion cars off the road durr", it's not a total lie. Cars are just so clean now that they're negligible compared to oth

I have sold my second CD, thanks to the talent show! I did an act where I construct a little loop onstage, using a random audience member's voice as an instrument and a drum, explaining what I'm doing, all in 5 minutes. It was a hit! Mrs. Wells, the English teacher (who let me borrow her laptop when it turned out Breanna couldn't lend me hers that day), not only bought a CD for her husband, who really loved the piece I did, but she's also going to leave Renoise installed on her computer so she can figure it out! Good luck and stay awesome, Mrs. Wells! Also, she only had to pay $5 for the CD, as I have reduced the price from $7 to garner sales in this economic crisis. As for the online download version, that's just $3 now, all my online buddies give a cheer! Singles are now $.25, a third of the old price. I'm also saving up money so I can do advertising on this site, which will hopefully result in good things. Finally, I'd like to introduce the new weekly audiophonical presentation that is Music Monday. Every Monday at my school, I plan to have a new song ready to play in study hall. I'll also upload it to Soundclick, either before I go to school, or late in the day when I get back. These will be playable in full, because they aren't for sale yet. No two-minute chop 'till my next CD, Forward is the Great Password! This also means that the new songs will come in at about one per week, causing me to create faster and have the CD ready sooner. It also means a new song to listen to every Monday! YAY!

This is kinda old news by the time I'm posting it, but I have made my first complete transaction! Mrs. Heskett, the study hall monitor, now has a great new CD, and I now have an extra 7 bucks. I haven't had much business since then, so I think my prices are too high. In fact, I may halve them. I'm keeping the singles prices right where they are rain or shine, though. I have not been able to print proper covers for my CDs yet, because my printer has bad alignment with a rotation issue that is pretty much impossible to fix without damaging vital parts of the machine. I know I'm not knowledgable enough to jury-rig it with baling twine and duct tape, though perhaps if I was McGyver, I'd have it fixed already, with cover slips all over the floor. I'm going to go to Kinko's, or someplace, to get them done up proper. Finally, I have a new song that I'm uploading! And listening to the whole thing is free! The CPU peaked a couple times during recording, but I manually snipped out some of the worst glitches (after watching Cloverfield, which desensitized me to audio glitches, making matching it up sample-to-sample that much harder. You guys totally owe me - nah, just kiddin'. You know I love you!). It's going on the next album, and this is a little taste of that. It will also have a few other songs I'm working on, which you haven't heard any pieces of, and one song that some of you have: Midnight Express. Yes, the one with the Hitler lyrics and copyright issues. The reason I made platform_descending to fill in the gap. It's on the next CD. Which I don't have a name for. Final bit of news: as much as I'm used to the screen name Campadrenalin, people always look at me weird when I say it. I have to explain all the history, yadda yadda yadda blech. So I've been considering starting a band with who knows who, just so I have an excuse to put a different name on my music. I think Jennifer and Brianna would both be good doing vocals, and if I find out someone I know plays guitar (acoustic, electric, or both) and has the free time, it will just make my day.