Robotic Plants

I was thinking about the environment today. And how we need plants to convert Carbon Dioxide back into Oxygen for us to breathe and also so we can burn stuff. But. What if robots wanted to take over by destroying all the plant life on Earth. For what that might be like, watch this:




Back to the point. Robots try to kill all our plants, til there's only a couple left that a human rebel force must defend to save the race. That's the theme of Save the Last Plants, a sweet sci-fi short story I'm going to write. Maybe.

But really, why can't we make some sort of machine that converts CO2 to O2? We just need to get rid of that stupid Carbon, and plants can do it, and we're like a billion times smarter than plants. Admittedly, I know next to nothing about chemistry, but i'm sure some people do, and there shoud be a way to figure this out. Think about it. We could just cut down the whole rainforest and replace it with a sweet metropolis of solar-powered robotic trees. How ill would that be?! And for all you tree-huggers out there, I have this little nugget of wisdom for you to chew on: no matter how many trees we cut down, there will always be an environment.

So there.

Guitar Hero

If you're roughly my age and live anywhere in America, you've probably played, watched, or at least heard about Guitar Hero. In case you're in the dark, Guitar Hero is a series of video games that started with the original Guitar Hero, released in November 2005. The game fed off the popularity of unorthodox controllers started by Dance Dance Revolution and used a guitar-shaped controller to simulate actual guitar playing.

The series has taken off from there growing to get more and more popular, as well as a staple of any college's dorm life. If you're in a college dorm right now, think about how many feet away from the nearest guitar hero set-up you are. Right now I'm 25 feet away from one (two floors above my room) and about 80 feet from another (down the hall), it's ridiculous. So, as you may imagine, being good at Guitar Hero is a very important status symbol, so here are some tips to help you get good and look cool:

1. Unless you're in a social setting where you need to show off, play the highest difficulty you can barely survive at. You don't get good by playing songs on Easy perfectly. You get good by eeking out Free Bird on Hard.

2. Don't be afraid to use Practice mode, it's a great way to nail a hard part of a song that gives you trouble.

3. Choose your party song. The most important thing is to find the right party song. Most parties and social gatherings where you play guitar hero will have you waiting in line just to play one song. Your party song is that one song. You just have to go in there and nail it near perfectly on Expert, possibly adding some complementary dance moves. No one has to know you played that one part of the solo on repeat in Practice mode for 2 hours. They just see you kicking ass. You should try to have one party song for each volume of Guitar Hero, and it should follow these criteria:

a. Recognizable, at least by a few people
b. Catchy riff (songs that are just chords are boring)
c. Difficult/Badass solo (this is how you impress people)

My songs are More Than a Feeling for Guitar Hero, Sweet Child o' Mine for Guitar Hero 2, and Cliffs of Dover for Guitar Hero 3. They're definitely solid.


But enough of that, time for some sweet videos. This first one is a guy playing Through the Fire and Flames, the hardest Guitar Hero song ever, on Expert. Prepare to be humbled:



And here's an 8-year-old that's probably better than you. Half showmanship, half skill, all second-grader.

Once and The Edukators

So I saw the movie Once on the airplane home from Japan, but I really liked so I watched it again two nights ago. Some of the music scenes are so ridiculously awesome that I decided I'd share them with you. This first scene is from when the two main leads first try to play a song together, inside a music store. There's also some other clips from the film spliced in. Enjoy:



Then there's my favorite song from the movie, which I imagined must have required a hundred takes to get right. Then I saw this video of the two main characters performing it live. Note the part where they are just screaming in perfect harmony. Glory.



Okay. So. Now that you're going to the video store to get Once, you should pick up this next film too. It's called The Edukators, and it's a German film that made a pretty big splash at Cannes. It's the kind of movie that can fall apart if you try to point out all the little flaws and improbabilities, but it can be really life-changing if you let it. Here's the trailer:




Cheers.

Heidkamping

So let me tell you about Heidkamping. Well.






This is Mr. Heidkamp. My senior year English teacher.

It all started out with some friends and I visiting Mr. Heidkamp after school last year. We would just stop by his room and either talk about whatever book we were currently reading, or, if we had nothing to say, stick our heads in the door and say "Heidkamp." This daily ritual snowballed throughout the year, until we were singing covers of songs from any and all genres, replacing just about every two syllable word with "Heidkamp."

Here are some examples so the concept sticks:

"Heidkamp bells, heidkamp bells, Heidkamp all the way"

"Heidkamp on my miiiiiiiiind..."

"Heidkamp's mom, has got it goin on"

After we had done this a few times, the history teacher from the room next door, Mr. Schwartz, started coming in to listen. Thusly, we incorporated his name into songs for one syllable words ala "It's the Eye of the Heidkamp, he's the king of the Schwartz."

Anyways, all of this culminated in me giving a graduation speech all about "Heidkamping" as it came to be known, including 5 different songs and a 4 part arrangement of "Heidkamp in D."

Unfortunately, Mr. Heidkamp wasn't at graduation. He had to watch it on tape much later. But then, after showing the tape to his parents, he became a legend in the Heidkamp family. How good does a teacher have to be to have kids sing about him at graduation? Heidkamp good. That's how.

Well the story doesn't end there. Me and my friends go to college now, but we still carry on the torch whenever we're home. One of those times was today. And since we can only Heidkamp a few times a year, we've taken to singing a really good one, with sheet music and fantastic harmony. Today's was "Don't Stop Heidkamping," off of the Journey classic, arranged by my friend Dan who does a lot of a capella stuff at Yale. What's that you say? You need proof?










Take that.

Children's Books and Beautiful Black Beer

Let me start things off with this video.



This is one of the funniest South Park clips ever. For those of you unable to translate the Japanese, it goes something like this:

A wonderful penis thing
The testicles have hair
Is that sound a baby monkey?
No, it's Ninjas!

Hey, Hey, Let's go, there's a fight
The important thing is to protect my balls
I'm a badass, So let's fighting
Let's fighting love

That being said, I have discovered my favorite beer and my favorite children's book. Both today. First was the children's book,
hyaku-man kai ikita neko, or The Cat Who Lived a Million Times. It's about a cat that has a million different lives with all kinds of people who love it very much, but it always hates the people. Then it becomes a stray cat for one of its lives and loves it because it gets to focus on itself all the time. This cat then becomes really popular with all the other cats because of all the stuff he's learned in his million lives, so he starts to get really full of himself. Except there's this one beautiful white cat that never even notices him. He keeps going up to her saying things like "i've lived a million times i can do all sorts of tricks" and she just says "that's true." Finally, the cat realizes he's not gonna impress this other cat with his previous lives, so he just humbles himself and asks if he can sit with her, and she says yeah. So then they get married and have a bunch of kids and eventually all the kids leave home and the two cats get old. Then the white cat dies, and the cat who lived a million times cries a million times for days on end, and dies and doesn't come back to life. It's an awesome story, and I could actually read and understand it in Japanese with just a little help from Yui. I highly recommend children's books, especially this one, for practicing reading Japanese. I bought it at Village Vanguard, which is basically a spencer's gifts of Japan, with tons of really weird stuff. It was such an awesome purchase, i think I'll read it again tonight.



From Village Vanguard we headed to a small bar named Harmonica, Chris knew which served Yebisu (king of Japanese beers) on tap. We were expecting just regular Yebisu, but we discovered they had Yebisu Black (like Guiness) on tap. We each ordered a glass at what we thought was an overpriced 530 yen. Oh how wrong we were. It was the most delicious beer I've ever had and we took some great pictures of ourselves enjoying it, which I will hopefully put up tomorrow. We happily ordered a second glass of the dark ambrosia then took the train home. While walking home from the station we stopped at the konbini and bought yet another Yebisu Kuro (black), and discovered it was almost as delicious from a can as it was from the tap. I'm going through some anxiety over this because I know it will be nearly impossible to get this beer in the states. If anyone knows where you can get Yebisu in the states or online, please please please let me know. It's just too delicious.

We ended the day drinking beers and eating snacks (I recommend Cratz) in the park. Tomorrow we're going to go to the Yebisu museum, which happens to have a tasting room. Hell Yes. I'll see you tomorrow if I'm sober enough to remember.