Rotoscopers Roundup 10

This year was super busy, so I didn't have a huge amount of time for writing, but I still managed to do a few reviews for the Rotoscopers. As always, I'm linking them all here for future reference.

Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker - Blu-ray Review

Dolittle - Blu-ray Review

Alice in Wonderland - 1933 - Blu-ray Review

Sonic the Hedgehog - Blu-ray Review

Trolls: World Tour - Blu-ray Review

Muppets Now - New Series Review

World of Tomorrow - Teaser for Episode 3

Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous - Season 1 Review

Fantasia

Fantasia is my favorite movie. It has been one of my favorites since I was a kid, and a lot of that has to do with my grandpa. Earlier this semester I really thought about why I love the movie so much, and I turned it into one of my poems for class, which I am sharing here.

Fantasia 

Before I was born,
My grandpa was many things.
A sailor in the Navy,
A teacher, mail carrier, father. 

By the time I came around,
He was just my grandpa.
He didn’t do much,
Except watch basketball and opera.
I wasn’t interested in either. 

One day he bought a video.
An animated film.
Something my grandparents never had.
This was the only one he’d ever buy.
Fantasia. 

Grandpa got the movie for its artistic merit,
Mainly the classical music,
I loved it for the dinosaurs. 

My grandpa didn’t do much with us,
He had heart problems,
He couldn’t play like other grandparents.
But we did watch Fantasia. 

I’m not sure how much of an impression,
It made on my brothers,
But Fantasia sure left an impression on me. 

It is the reason I love animation,
It is the reason I love classical music,
It’s probably even the reason I love dinosaurs. 

I would go so far to say,
Fantasia is one of the things,
That made me, me. 

Grandpa died earlier this year.
He’d been sick awhile,
So it wasn’t a shock.
It was still sad though. 

Last week grandma asked me,
If there was anything I wanted,
Something to remember grandpa by.
I didn’t even have to think about it.
There was just one thing that grandpa left,
That I knew I’d want. 

TIIA 19 (The Internet is Awesome)

Let's start this out with an amazing song by Nick Pitera. He's mostly known for his covers of popular Disney songs where he sings both the male and female parts. This song is an original by him, about his unique voice. It's one of my favorite songs he's ever done. :)



Next we have a video from Mystery Guitar Man, which is rather short, but still awesome. I love it. :)



Then we have another Lord of the Rings inspired video from Peter Hollens, this time featuring violinist Taylor Davis.



We also have a viral video, another prank video using one of those ultra realistic velociraptor costumes. Normally I hate prank videos, but you could tell this one was all in good fun, and the targets were all eventually okay with it.



Pentatonix has slowly been releasing videos for all the songs from their debut album, and one of the most recent ones was for their collab with Jason Derulo, If I Ever Fall in Love.



Next we have a video from Lindsey Stirling. I know it;s just an announcement video for her summer tour, but it's still extremely cool. I hope she'll eventually flesh out this Tron-inspired idea into a full-length video.



Disney's new Jungle Book movie was recently released, and they put out this remix on their YouTube channel. I love it so much! I wish there was a full length version available for purchase somewhere!



Let's end this post with an amazing video from Alaa Wardi. I have no preconceived notion as to what these songs originally sounded like, but I love how he weaved them all together.



Bonus! This video is WAY outdated by this point, but I still wanted to include it in a blog post. For those that might not get the joke, it spoofs the meme that takes NSync's It's Gonna Be Me, misquoting it right before the month of May. It was released on the last day of April. The Gregory Brothers put their own spin on the song, as usual. :p

Chicago 2015 (Part 2)

If you missed Part 1 of these photos, you can click HERE to catch up.

Last time we went to Chicago we went to the Willis (Sears) Tower. We didn't want to do that many repeats this trip, so this time we went to the Hancock Tower.

It's cool to look down over the city and see places that you had recently walked by or visited.

Classic cityscape.

We also just kind of walked around the city that day, and we found a really cool candy store. Everything was way too expensive and we didn't buy anything, but it was cool nonetheless. :p

On one of our last few days we went to the Museum of Science and Industry with Becky, Ethan and Lucas. Ethan loved hanging out with Shaina. :)

It was a rather long trip to get to the museum, 2 trains, and a bus.

Lucas fell asleep before we even got there.

This museum was one of the coolest places we visited. They had an indoor tornado!

And a mirror maze

This place was so trippy and cool.

An endless maze of me.

They had a bunch of incubators with chicks and eggs at various stages.

They were so cute.

Lucas may be rather camera shy, (See last post) but Ethan isn't. :p

On our second to last day we went to the Field museum, which was cool as always.

Shaina has been fascinated with lichens ever since she watched Labyrinth, (which we had just recently watched) so we had to go see their new, temporary lichen exhibit.

The dinosaurs were my favorite part. :p

While we were there I had to find this exhibit. I watch the YouTube channel, The Brain Scoop, which is now based out of the Field Museum, and they recently had a fund drive to create a whole new exhibit for these hyenas. Apparently they have been in the reptile room for decades, and they have been wanting to make a better home for them for a long time. They did eventually reach their goal, and the new exhibit was recently completed. I will have to find that the next time I go.

On our very last day, Sasha was too exhausted to do anything, so Shaina and I went to Navy Pier by ourselves. The Ferris wheel was our favorite part. :)

We also rode the carousal.

We rode the Ferris wheel a few times.

This ride was so much fun.

We also road it more than once. :)

This was our view on our last night there. Chicago is such a cool place. :)

That's all the pictures I have from this trip! In two weeks my cousins and I will be in Minnesota, and I will do my very best to get those up as soon as possible after we get back. :)

Chicago: Day 3 - The Field Museum

Our third day in Illinois, and we actually went TO Chicago! We took the train into the city and caught a bus to the Field Museum! It was so much fun! My only regret for the day was that I didn't get to meet one of my favorite YouTubers, Emily Graslie, of the channel "The Brain Scoop." She works at the Field Museum, and we had been Tweeting each other that day trying to see if it would work to meet, but she ended up having meetings all day, and it didn't work out. Hopefully next time!

I don't have quite as many pictures as I usually take, as I kind of just got caught up in looking at, and reading everything, and just kind of forgot to take a lot of pictures.

 Waiting for the train.

 The train arrives!

 Window washers rappelling down the side of a building. That would be a scary/exciting job! Not how most window washers jobs are described...

 The Field Museum! *Angelic Chorus*

Tradition. :)

 Outside the museum

 Sue!

Sue, from above.

My favorite dinosaur! The Parasaurolophus! I don't even have to look up the spelling. I've known it by heart since I was a kid. :)


And that's about all I had that day. I'm sure I'll be back there again. I'll do better on taking pictures next time. :)

A Twist Ending: 2!

You may recall recently that I recently had a very unpleasant encounter with a customer that I decided to fictionalize, and I gave it an ending that made the very petty side of me giggle with malevolence. You may find that HERE if you would like a reminder.

Yesterday I had another rude customer, and for some reason my childish side decided that a similar fate should befall her as well. Since the first story had been for a writing contest, I gave myself the same parameters. Kill her off in 200 words or less. I did it in 197. As before, everything in the story is completely true. The first two paragraphs anyway...

~

“Have a nice day!” I called out, setting the last of the groceries into the customer’s car. I closed the trunk and wheeled the empty cart back into the grocery store. Inside, an elderly woman was rummaging through a purse which she had set on top one of the two rows of carts. I collected a second cart that another customer had left in the entryway, pushed them into the row that the woman had not blocked off, and headed back inside.

“Boy, you sure are noisy!” The old lady vociferously exclaimed behind me as I entered the store. I honestly thought she was joking so I started laughing and turned around, only to see her glaring at me with a fury so malevolent, that you would have thought that I had just slapped her face, spit in her eye, and insulted her long-dead mother.

Just then, from outside there came a thunderous roar, and the window beside the carts shattered inward as the head of a massive Tyrannosaurus Rex burst though. In one swift motion, the beast snatched up the cantankerous old woman, and swallowed her whole.

The poor thing had indigestion for days afterwards.

~

I've now decided that as long as I keep having encounters with rude people, this kind of story will be a regular thing. So, a word of warning - Be nice to me, or I will literarily kill you.

County Fair 2012

Today was the entry day for the fair. I had been debating whether or not I even wanted to enter anything this year. It cost big bucks to get something framed, and for the pitiful monetary prizes that they award, it isn't worth spending $50 to get a painting framed, even if you won 1st prize. ($2) I lucked out last year and I found some old frames that fit my paintings and drawings, but this year it would have been a lot more challenging, since my paintings are on canvas and canvas board. So I elected to just skip the art department.

I almost didn't enter anything at all, but I decided this morning to enter some photography. Nothing like waiting till the last minute, eh? :p I didn't have as many as I did last year, but I did have 5 good ones that I found. Except for the last one, these are all pictures that I already shared on my photo blog in the past, so they may look familiar. The only difference is these are all BEFORE any manipulation.

One of the rules for entry is no photo manipulation. Not even color correction. In my opinion it's a stupid rule. You might as well ban any camera lenses that alter the color before you take the picture. You might as well ban the use of different colored lights! It's about the art, people... Come on. Are you going to start saying that we can't use certain brands of pens for drawing because they make the pictures too colorful? As you can tell I really hate this insane rule.

Anyway, enough of my rantings... :p Here are my five pictures.

In the "People" category:

In the "Animals/Birds" category:

In the "Things/Still Life" Category:

In the "Miscellaneous" category:

In the "Life in Iowa" category:

The Firework was from my first ever PROPER fireworks photoshoot last week on July 4th. I used the Bulb feature on my camera, along with a tripod, so the pictures actually turned out well. I plan to do a post featuring my best ones pretty soon.

So, that's it for my fair entries this year. Hopefully I'll get something. I'm not really expecting much, but I'm hoping that at least the picture of the Barn Swallows is worth a Blue. We'll see. :)