4071 (A Poem)

For this poem, I'm just going to post it here for you to read, before I give any context.

4071

I was there when we moved by box,
Long before we moved by light.

I was there when we ate to recharge,
Long before we plugged in to recharge.

I was there when we walked on grass,
Long before it was covered with metal.

I was there when we had children,
Long before we grew clones in tanks.

I was there when we looked to the sky,
Long before the shell was installed.

I was there when we had libraries,
Long before cranial downloads.

I was there when animals roamed the earth,
Long before we owned the earth.

I was there when the trees began to walk,
Long before we cut them down.

I was there when we were human,
Long before we weren’t.

So, as you can see, this is not your ordinary, every day poem. It has a meaning, and it's supposed to tell a story. Can you interpret the story?

That's what my class had to do, so I thought I'd let you all do so as well.

I thought about publishing the poem one day, and then the explanation the next day.

My classmates had to go a week without any clarification, so a day should be nothing. :p

But I guess I'll be nice and put it all in one post.

You all probably didn't want to do any homework today anyway. :p

This poem came from another writing prompt in class. I can't remember exactly what the prompt was, but I'm pretty sure we were supposed to write about a period of history from the eyes of someone who lived through it. Sort of looking back on history with the knowledge they had gained. I can't remember if the teacher mentioned writing about the present from the perspective of someone from the future, or if I came up with that on my own, but that is basically what this poem is. It's a bit of a grim future.

For the record, I don't think that the future will be in any way like this, I just enjoy speculative fiction and dystopian futures, so that's what I came up with.

I'll walk you though everything I had in mind when I wrote this, starting with the title. 4071. That confused everyone at first until they really thought about it. One of my teachers first thought it sounded like the model number of a tractor, (She grew up on a farm) or perhaps an address before she read too far into it. The simple answer is that it's the year that the poem is being written from.

I was there when we moved by box,
Long before we moved by light.

This line refers to cars, or some other car-like vehicle, and the "Light," is teleportation.

I was there when we ate to recharge,
Long before we plugged in to recharge.

This basically means that people no longer have to eat, they've cybernetically enhanced their bodies so that they just have to plug into a power source to get more energy.

I was there when we walked on grass,
Long before it was covered with metal.

In my imagined future, most or all of the earth has been covered over with metal. There is no grass left, at least, none where the author lives.

I was there when we had children,
Long before we grew clones in tanks.

This one is pretty self explanatory.

I was there when we looked to the sky,
Long before the shell was installed.

This one confused the heck out of everyone. In this future world, I imagined that humanity had built a shell around the entire earth. The shell keeps things like asteroids and aliens out, but there's not really a sky anymore.

I was there when we had libraries,
Long before cranial downloads.

This basically means that people download information directly to their brains instead of reading.

I was there when animals roamed the earth,
Long before we owned the earth.

This line refers to most animals being extinct. The ones that are left all live in zoos, there are no wild animals anymore.

I was there when the trees began to walk,
Long before we cut them down.

This line also confused everyone. This was another bit of far-out imagining on my part. I was just going to write about humanity cutting down all the trees, but then I had the idea to give it even more of a twist.

I was partially inspired by the Ents in Lord of the Rings, as well as by the Forest of Cheem in Doctor Who, but I imagined that in the far future, earth's trees became a sentient race, with intelligence on par with humans. Then there was a war between the races, and humanity won.

I was there when we were human,
Long before we weren’t.

This line was everyone's favorite part. Just about everyone circled it, or underlined it and wrote that it was brilliant.

Basically the author of the poem no longer views humanity as human anymore. They've added too much to their minds and bodies, and taken too much from the earth. Even himself, as he's lived for hundreds of years, and has been a part of everything. He thinks that humanity has done so much that they've lost the right to be called human.

Yes, this is a rather depressing poem, but I thought it was fun to write. Like I said, I don't think any of this is going to happen, I am far more of an optimist overall when it comes to thinking about the future, but I do like stories where everything is terrible and people have to overcome it.

I didn't write it as such, but in my head I imagine that after the author wrote this poem, it started a movement to restore the earth to the way it used to be. So if it helps, you can imagine with me that it eventually has a happy ending. :)

TIIA 12 (The Internet Is Awesome)

Before I get into the kinds of videos I normally share, I have one, or two if you want to get technical, that I had to include, because it was too funny not to. One of the things that I love about the internet is that people will take one seemingly insignificant video and turn it into something utterly ridiculous. Case in point, this video.



You'll be asked to watch that video at the beginning of the next one, so I thought I would just add it here and get that out of the way before I post the next one. This is a video by a channel called Mediocre films, and it's a parody of the previous video, which went viral super fast a few months ago. That was a real video by a real woman, who was really upset, and she had every right to be. If I remember right, from what I've read, she's alone in on an island in Alaska with no way of contacting anyone from where she was, which was was she was practically in hysterics. Everything did turn out fine, I think she swam to the other shore, and was able to call for help, and she was rescued. Knowing what I knew about the backstory going in, I really wasn't wasn't expecting the parody to be funny. I was dead wrong. I about died laughing.



Now to get back to the kinds of videos I normally add to these things, lets start off with a Piano Guys video. The instruments in this video have the names of all their original founders from a few years ago. Anyone who helped support them in the time when they were just getting started should have their name, somewhere on those instruments. I was one of the original founders, I sent them some money as sort of a pre-kickstarter campaign, so theoretically, my name is in there somewhere. I never saw it, but you're welcome to look. :)



This next video is another hilarious sketch by Studio C. I don't even know why it's funny, and maybe it won't be to you, but I can't help but laugh every time I watch it.



Last summer I found this song, I don't even remember how, it was one of those rabbit-hole scenarios where you find yourself getting lost in the depths of the internet, discovering things you never knew you needed. This was one of those discoveries. The singer is Britney Spears, but the artist is a guy named Giorgio Moroder. He was a composer in the era of disco, and he hadn't released an album since around the 80's! He had just released a whole new album of music, most of which were collaborations with present day artists, some covers, like this one, and others original compositions. I got the album immediately, and it was amazing. This song was still my favorite though.



This next video left me VERY conflicted. I can not stand most televangelists. From what I've seen and read, too many of them are basically religious predators/swindlers. Including this guy, who has been involved in numerous scandals, which is why I did NOT want to like this video. However, Pogo, an electronic music artist, took this old footage, and turned it into something amazing. I did not want to love it, but I did. And I do. It's just too good to not love.



To follow that up, we'll move on to Pentatonix who are never not brilliant. This is another song off their new album, full of original songs. This is one of my favorites. If you're familiar with YouTube culture you'll recognize a whole lot of YouTuber cameos.



A few moths ago saw the release of the Peanuts movie, which turned out to be one of the EXTREMELY rare CGI animated movies based on a comic strip that was really good! Even the integration of modern music artists worked! I loved this song by Megan Trainor. It really captured the feel of the movie.



We'll end this post with a video by the always amazing Peter Hollens, it's a medley from the movie, The Prince of Egypt, which I have never seen, but I probably should, because if the music is half as good as Peter's cover, then it's probably amazing.

Twist Endings - Writing Class Assignment

I debated on whether or not to post these next writing assignment submissions or not, as they've already been published on my blog once. In the end I decided to go for it, because they've all been edited for clarity, plus I have stuff I want to say about how each one went over.

One of the kinds of writing that we were supposed to do for my creative writing class was an autobiographical story. This could include a straight up true story, or it could be one that had been "Enhanced," in some way. As soon as I heard that, I knew I wanted to submit some of my "Twist Ending" stories. They are all true stories that have been significantly enhanced by a twist ending.

I picked out three of my favorite ones to submit, three that I was still pretty happy with, as a few of them, especially the early ones, I'm not that fond of any more.

All the stories went over pretty well. I got great feedback, and people loved how real they felt, right up until the ending that completely changed things. I got many specific comments on the "Excellent" dialogue, specifically how real it seemed. Well, little did they know that everything felt so real because it all is real!

I had one classmate go so far as to write that all these stories felt like real interactions that she had had with terrible customers while working at Village Inn or Hy-Vee, and that the end seemed like something she might wish would happen to all her terrible customers! Little did she know that this was EXACTLY what these stories were!

Probably the best thing that anyone wrote to describe these stories was what one of my teachers wrote on my first draft:

"The satirical take that emerges in all these 'cautionary tales' reminds me of some strange modern-day, sci-fi Willy Wonka set in a grocery store!"

I did not even think about that when I was writing these, but I read Willy Wonka countless times as a kid, and I have no doubt that the bad children's comeuppance in those books had some sort of an influence on me. Perhaps I was subliminally channelling Roald Dahl. :p

One of the best bits of usable feedback I got about this first story was the fact that I used the word "Flock," to describe the swarm of crows, when I could have used "Murder," which is what a group of crows is actually called! That was genius! I don't know why I didn't think of that myself! So I took it for my revision. :p

The main change I made to this story was in the way I formatted the ending. As I gave this to everyone cold, they all assumed that this was a fictional story, as would seem obvious with the ending. The most common critique I got was about the abrupt change in POV (Point of View) at the end. As this, for the most part, is a true story, I wrote from my perspective, in the first person; but at the end, I wrote in the third person, as this all, for the most part, was happening beyond my knowledge. Technically this is not good writing, so I tried to format the end so that the shift in POV isn't too jarring. I was unwilling to change the POV of the entire piece to third person, as would be necessary, so this was my compromise.

Twist Endings 1

"Isn't there a senior discount?" The elderly woman asked sorely, as I gave her the total. It was under twenty dollars.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," I explained, "The senior discount is on Wednesdays." I didn’t think it would be that big of an issue, the discount would have amounted to less than a dollar. 

"Well, not everyone can get here on Wednesdays!" She exclaimed angrily.
"Sorry," I apologized. "I'm not allowed to give discounts unless it's Wednesday," 

"Yeah, well, this place is sick!" She exclaimed, shoving the money towards me. "And getting sicker!" 

I really didn't know what to say to that, so I finished her transaction, and wished her a nice day. She just looked at me and scornfully laughed in my face. I decided to just ignore that and I turned to the next customer, a little girl. 

"Hello," I greeted her, as I began to ring up her items. "Did you find everything okay? 

"No she didn't!" The elderly woman exclaimed loudly, and left, laughing derisively as the little girl just looked at me, confused. 

~

As the old woman marched out of the store, the sky grew dark, and faint, raspy, “Caw!” sounds clouded the air. A massive murder of crows had filled the sky, temporarily blocking out the sun. The swarm got into formation and swooped down toward the old woman in a massive black cloud. The flock engulfed her, and as the crows disappeared over the horizon, the woman was gone. 

The next story is still pretty similar to my original story too. I didn't make too many changes beyond the formatting of the last paragraphs, and to make the action take place outside, so I would not have seen it, so I'd have no excuse but to write in the third person.

People loved this one too, and the most common feedback was how great my made up words were for the alien's dialogue. There were a couple people who did not like the words, but the positive feedback vastly outnumbered the negative.

Twist Endings 2 

"Keep the change," the little girl told me, as I counted out the 31 cents in change from her purchase.

"Okay..." I replied, unsure of what else to say. I wasn't used to people telling me to keep the change. I set it aside and moved on to the next customer. 

A little later I heard a loud berating voice shouting from around the corner. "$1.69 out of $2.00 is NOT two cents! Get over there and ask for your change!" 

"I don't want to," the little girl said quietly, almost in tears. "UGH!" I heard the mother exclaim angrily, and she marched off. 

A few minutes later, a much younger girl approached my counter and looked up, barely able to see over the edge. 

"My sister said to keep the change, but my mom wants it back." She said in a tiny voice. I picked up the change from where I had set it, and handed it to her. She walked back to her mother and gave her the change. 

"Not you!" The mom shouted at her, pointing at the other girl, "I wanted her to do it!" 

~ 

As the woman marched her children out of the store, she was frozen in a beam of light projected from the sky. Two green-skinned humanoids wearing blue uniforms materialized beside her. 

"Is this the intergalactic criminal known as The Abuzor?" The first humanoid asked the second. 

"Affirmative." He replied. "We've been searching for her for the last 13 parstinkles. She will be taken back to Gozox, to be put to work in the Plootonx mines, digging for Croylon Yarf." 

"What about these innocent children?" The first humanoid asked. "They had no part in their mother's heinous crimes." 

"We will take them with us." The second replied. "Queen Aultramira loves children. I'm sure she will be thrilled to adopt a few more." 

The entire group vanished, and they were never seen again.

The last story underwent the most heavy editing, and for good reason. When I first wrote it, I put it into a blog post, and I prefaced it with an explanation about the customer, how she is a regular at the Harlan Hy-Vee, how she does this kind of thing all the time, but I did not realize that this information was not clear at all in the story itself. So almost everybody was completely confused by the fact that it seemed to be three different stories about three different women, and only one of the women was punished for her behavior. Some people understood that it was the same woman, but with so much confusion, I figured I needed make it clearer.

Not all the feedback was negative though. Most people loved how dark the ending was, I got many positive comments on the dark humor of all these stories, but people really liked that this one was just a little bit darker. I even got comparisons to the Twilight Zone, not just on this one, but on all of them, which is high praise indeed. I don't think they're that good, but if someone wants to think that, I'll let them. :p

Twist Endings 3

"Woah, wait a second," the woman said as I scanned her groceries. "That toilet paper is supposed to be $3.29, and it rang up $4.99. You know what that means," she said, barely able to hold in her glee. "If the item rings up wrong, it is automatically free," she pointed to the sign hanging above the store.

I called my manager, who first went to make sure the price was wrong. "I'm sorry," she said walking back from the display holding a smaller sized package. "This is the size that's on sale. The other one is larger. Would you like to buy this one instead?" 

"No," the woman said, frowning. "I don't want either of them. The sign back there was misleading. I should get it for free." She begrudgingly paid for her groceries and left, silently mumbling to herself. 

~ 

As she fumed out of the store, a small green creature peered out from behind the ATM with a scroll of parchment and a quill of ink. It checked a box and slunk back out of sight. 

~ 

A few months later the woman was back in my line. 

"Excuse me, those batteries are marked as $2.99 on the sign over there," she said as I slid the packages of batteries I had just scanned down the counter to be bagged. I looked at the monitor; the prices on each read $2.79. 

"Well," I said with a smile, "Looks like you just got a good deal." 

"Um, no, they rang up wrong," the woman said with a scowl, "I get them for free." 

I looked at her to see if she was kidding. Surely no one was that ridiculously petty. She wasn't kidding. I called my manager who double-checked the price, got an earful from the woman, and gave her the batteries for free. 

~ 

As the woman marched victoriously from the store, the little green creature watched her silently from under a bakery display table, and marked another box on his paper. 

~ 

One night, a few months later the woman came through my line one last time. 

"Hold on," she said as I scanned several packages of bologna. "These are ringing up $1.69. The sign says that they are 3 for $5. I've done the math; they should each be ringing up $1.67. Ask your manager to go check, these are wrong." 

Once again my manager dutifully went back to check the price. While she was gone the woman started talking to those around her who were being inconvenienced. 

"Sorry about this, I'm such a pain," she said in a voice that clearly indicated that she wasn't sorry at all. "I've just got to be careful you know. Gotta always watch these prices! You never know when they're gonna get you!" 

My manager returned and said that, yes, the bologna should indeed be two cents cheaper. "Well, I guess that means they're free!" The woman said triumphantly, as though she had just won some kind of reality game show. My manager took the cost of the bologna off her order, and left her to pay. 

~ 

From his hiding spot around the corner of the pharmacy, the little green creature ticked one last box off his list, and as the woman left the store with her load of bologna, it crept after her, sneaking into her car through a rear window while she loaded her trunk. 

As the woman drove home in the dark, she had the creepiest feeling she was being watched from the back seat. She looked into the rear-view-mirror, and saw the glowing yellow eyes of a Greed Goblin staring back at her. She screamed and began swerving violently as the goblin leapt into the front seat. After a minute the swerving vehicle corrected itself, and kept on driving down the dark highway as normal. The woman was never seen again.

Poetry and Things

So a year ago, (A year ago?!?! Where did the time go?!?!) I was in a creative writing class, and while in that class, I wrote a few things that I was planning to share on my blog. And then I forgot.

Speaking of that class, I ran into my teacher from that class, while walking across campus today. He actually remembered me, which is a feat unto itself, considering the size of that class, how many classes he probably teaches at the same time, and how many he has taught between then and now. He asked me if I was still writing, and told me I'd better be, because I was too good not to. So that was something...

Anyway, I had been planning to post these things for awhile now, so it wasn't just running into my teacher that made me remember to do so, but it did help me decide to do it right now. The first thing I'm going to post is something that literally makes no sense, but it seemed to go over very well in my class. It's a poem conceived by the website poetweet, a site which takes your twitter handle, and mines your tweets for rhyming lines and then pieces together a short poem out of them.

I ran poetweet over my entire twitter history multiple times and got as many rhyming lines out of it as I could. Then I mixed and matched, went back in and took some rhymes on my own, and came up with the bizarre poem that I've transcribed here. It makes no sense, but I was really happy with how it turned out, and my class really liked it too. It was so funny to me to read their feedback as they tried to decipher what I meant by it.

A few figured it our right away, the poetweet prompt had been an early writing assignment that I expanded on for this, much later, but some people really searched for something deeper, as that was what we were supposed to do. I had more than one person questioning if it was a commentary on social media, a guess prompted by the use of the word "Post" in the first line, and the fact that I titled it, "LIFE-CHANGING ANNOUNCEMENT," as if it was a sarcastic nod to people's tendency to over-exaggerate on social media.

That actually was an excellent observation though, and I wish I'd put that deep a thought into it, but even the title was just a line from a random tweet. However, the original tweet that that line came from, was exactly that! I was using it as a spoof of people's "Announcements" on social media, as it came from one of my April Fools jokes. So the people who caught that second-hand meaning that apparently bled through, should get an imaginary gold star. :)

Other guesses to the poem's meaning were that it was some kind of a strange blog post, maybe a commentary on blogging, or a weird PSA for a school (I mentioned a semester), but most people were just generally confused. Most of them said they liked the imagination and creativity though, even if they didn't understand it at all. Which is fine, I literally meant almost nothing by this poem. It was just a fun writing exercise. :p

I'll post that poem now, and I'll post my other things in separate post later.

P.S. As a side note, you'll notice that one line of the poem refers to The Pioneer Woman, (I tagged her twitter handle in a tweet once) and I was quite amused by the fact that in her critique, one of my teachers pointed out that particular line, and wrote next to it "Ha! I love Pioneer Woman!"

LIFE-CHANGING ANNOUNCEMENT 

Last semester, in this post,
It’s for a writing contest.
In the air, one guy’s a ghost.
Chris Pratt is just the best. 

 The kiss must happen at midnight.
He can't stay there forever!
My first assignment is tonight!
Best episode ever! 

 Giant invisible hamsters.
A miniature, time-locked explosion.
If you’re looking for legitimate recipes,
Try @thepioneerwoman 

 There’s evidence left that they existed.
How is this even possible?
You like living. I bet you do.
It’s a serious inner struggle... 

 The old me wants nothing to do with this,
Like, a child in the grocery store.
The new me is morbidly curious,
In the archives waiting for more! 

 Have you seen the finale yet?
No shell? It's called a Globster.
In Ames, he meets an adorable fate.
I loved it, it’s so sad it's over.

TIIA 11 (The Internet Is Awesome)

I finally made a logo for this thing! It's a bit garish, but it'll have to do until I have time to make something better. Probably in about 3 to 4 years. :p

Let's begin with a video from, literally the first YouTuber I ever subscribed to, Mystery Guitar Man! He has branched out into other endeavors far beyond the awesome musical videos he used to do way back when, but every once in a while he'll do a throwback to the good old days, and that's pretty much exactly what this video is.



Next we have a video from The Men Who Do Nothing, formerly from the YouTube Channel, Mr. Epic Man, of "How Animals Eat Their Food" fame. This is literally one of the dumbest videos ever, but that's what makes it so incredibly, stupidly funny.



Todrick Hall just did an amazing mashup of just about every Taylor Swift song you could think of. It's awesome.



ELO, a band you probably haven't heard of since the 70's, is releasing their first album since 2001, and the second since 1986! So it's probably a rather big deal for some people who have been around a lot longer than I have. Regardless, I love their music, and the first single from the new album sounds amazing.



I kind of hate to admit this, but Justin Bieber has been making some amazing music recently. >Choke!< I can't beliebe I just said that! I mean, it seems like he's been turning his life around recently, so is it okay to like him? Can I at least like his music? What if I like his music more when other people cover it? Because that's one of the best things about his recent string of great music, the fact that people even more talented than him will cover it. Like Pentatonix.



Speaking of covers, here's another one. This one is another(!) mashup of songs by Taylor Swift, covered by Peter and Evynne Hollens. These people are some of the most talented people on YouTube. I can't get over how awesome they are.



And speaking of amazing talent, (and acapella) Mike Tompkins can make a commissioned ad, and turn it into a work of art!



Let's end this with a video from Christopher Ballinger and his family. A parody of Mackleore's Downtown. You might know Chris better as the brother of Colleen Ballinger, AKA Miranda Sings, but he is very talented in his own right, and his kids are awesome.

Rotoscopers Roundup 2

Well since the last time I did this, I have been so busy writing for the Rotoscopers, that I have another huge list of articles to share. These ones are from where I left off to the end of 2015.

Review of Gravity Falls: The Stanchurian Candidate.

Review of The Muppets: Bear Left Then Bear Write.

Review of Gravity Falls: The Last Mabelcorn.

Review of The Muppets: Pig Out.

Review of the DVD: He’s a Bully, Charlie Brown.

Review of Star Wars Rebels: The Lost Commanders.

Review of Gravity Falls: Roadside Attraction.

Announcement of ABC's full season order of The Muppets.

Review of The Muppets: Walk the Swine.

Announcement of The Muppets co-creator Bob Kushell leaving the show.

Review of The Muppets: The Ex-Factor.

Review of Star Wars Rebels: Always Two There Are.

Review of The Muppets: Pig's in a Blackout.

Review of Gravity Falls: Dipper and Mabel vs. The Future.

Announcement that Gravity Falls will end at the close of Season 2.

Review of The Muppets: Too Hot To Handler.

Review of Gravity Falls: Weirdmageddon Part 1.

Announcement of the series finale air date of Gravity Falls.

In the first post, from the first 9-10 months, I had 22 articles, and in this one I have 18! That's a lot of writing for just a few months!

2014/2015 Photos! When were they from? Nobody knows!

I am finally getting around to editing my photos from over a year ago. I have just been so off my game when it comes to photos lately. I have not taken my camera to enough places, and when I did get pictures, I ended up leaving them on my computer for months. School takes up way too much time... :p

Inevitably this results in posts like this one, and the many that will follow, full of pictures from well over a year ago. Hopefully I will not be letting this happen again.

The one upside to this negligence is that it's fun to go back in time for a few hours. Sorting through old pictures is like looking through memories, except usually clearer than the ones in your head. :)

The following pictures are in no particular order, due to the fact that I haven't the foggiest when exactly I took them. :p

One day while I was walking between classes I came upon an outdoor concert practice session.

It was really cool to see that. Only on a college campus. :)

I think those were early 2015.

These were taken at Alayna's graduation. Mid 2014.

She was opening her present from me.

Did she like it? :p

I got her some props for future videos. :)

Ariana loved the decorations at Alayna's party.

Cakesniffers!

This was an interesting drive home from Ames.
This thing was driving alongside/around me for like 20 minutes.

Someone loves cherries. :)

I think this was not too long after I'd gotten my iPod Touch. THAT was awhile ago. I believe that Alayna took these herself while we were on a hayride.

This was one day around the end of 2014/ beginning of 2015.

Campus was taken over by Canada geese!

This was sometime well before Big Hero 6, but we had to get a picture. :)

That's all the pictures for now. More coming soon! From Colorado to Chicago, I have a ton of catching up to do!