It's Cell Shaded!!! It's like walking into a cartoon! There are no photo tricks, this is simply a snapshot taken of the room, amazing, huh? I would definitely stay here. . .
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Awesome Hotel Room
In Berlin there is a hotel that has each of its rooms designed by a different artist. This is my favorite out of all of them:
Senior Advisory
My College Writing Paper:
Charles A. Sprague High School is a unique school, in that it sports many attributes that are completely useless and/or ridiculous. Some of these qualities are trivial and acceptable. So what if the room numbers skip from 114 to 170 and then back again to 115? So what if the color of our water matches our walls? So what if our mascot is a Greek Olympian yet we have a Pantheon? These mere trifles are nothing if not amusing when compared to the relatively recent travesty that now graces the schedules of all Olympians, but only totally destroys the lives of the Senior Olympians. Sprague has a block schedule, which does enough to confuse students that are barely awake enough to figure out what their first period class is. Now Sprague’s schedule is so confusing that there isn’t really an accurate term to describe it! Instead of simply switching classes every day, every Tuesday all class periods are shortened and a new class is shoved unwillingly in. . .Advisory. It sounds helpful, perhaps advice is given! No.
The advisory class was designed and voted into being by a board of individuals that haven’t stepped foot into a high school in 20 years. The theory behind the advisory is to divide each class, freshmen through seniors, into small groups of about 20 and distribute them around the school and leave them in the charge of random teachers for 36 minutes. For those 36 minutes, the freshmen, sophomores, and juniors gain important knowledge about the SAT’s, scheduling, and earning requirements to graduate. The seniors, on the other hand, are handed “the folder”, full of either paperwork that we all filled out in our freshman health classes or paperwork that is completely foreign and confusing. We are then told “Go! Oh, and if you do it wrong you won’t graduate.” Do what?
“The folder”, the central focus of the advisory class, is somewhat of a curious oddity. It contains calendars, checklists, resumé building tips, and a variety of other unimportant looking documents, all of which are more colorful than the pile of vomit any senior would spew if they hear the word “CIS” or “CIM” ever again. Many of these papers look as if they could be useful, if they were needed for something other than toilet paper, but it appears that “the folder” is aimed at students that are completely helpless and will never get jobs, ever. “The folder” contains an immense amount of material and the less-than-immense amount of instructions on how to use said materials.
Teachers of the senior advisory classes are ill-prepared and uninformed. No need to beat around the bush, they simply have no idea what the seniors are supposed to be doing. They simply tell the seniors to fill out the folders.
“How?”
“I don’t know, ask Carlotta.”
“Ok,” *forgets/doesn’t care* It’s not that the teachers don’t care (perhaps), but that they were simply never told what to do. That’s fitting, create a brand new and confusing GRADUATION REQUIREMENT that nobody is qualified to administor, then punish students for not caring about material in a folder that doesn’t apply to their lives.
When the actual, physical folder is examined, one will find a series of lists, checkboxes, and blank spaces for signatures. The meaning/use of these markings is currently unknown, but many seniors believe that at one point they will need to get signatures for something. Nobody knows what the signatures mean, or if they’re part of the graduation requirement, but that’s typical in senior advisory. When one attempts to read the folder, they discover that every other word is an acronym, standing for God knows what, but still requiring a signature.
“What does ‘AJEBN’ stand for and why do I have to do it for five hours?”
“I don’t know, ask Carlotta.”
“Ok,” *forgets/doesn’t care* Of course, all of this is immaterial, because at the end of the typical senior’s 36 minutes of mind-numbing advisory hell, the folders go into a filing drawer, not to be seen again until the next week. “The folder” isn’t allowed out of the classroom, so they will never be signed, ever.
Advisor class is the epitomy of the useless Sprague attribute. It is a confusing waste of time that makes seniors almost more willing to not graduate than complete “the folder”. Should the seniors be worried about graduating? Shouldn’t they be actively researching what they need to complete “the folder”? Eh, who cares.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Speech Team Joke
So, today in speech team, we were all just kinda chillin'. Not much was going on, we were recovering from a tournament last weekend, so in theory we were supposed to be doing homework we couldn't do during the tournament. Well, during a lively discussion, I slammed my fist down on my table, which happened to have a water bottle sitting on it. The water bottle jumped straight up about a half inch and then fell back down again. This was absolutely amazing to me, and to Truman. Well, I happened to have a slide rule on my desk (don't ask), so Truman picked it up and decided to test his reaction time. I would pound the table and he would try to stick the slide rule under the bottle while it was in the air. This is all fine and dandy, and our speech team coach even looked across the room at us to see what we were doing. In fact, the room was very quiet as Truman an I focused on our "Smash the table and get the slide rule under the bottle" game. After succeeding several times, Truman then graduated to the "Smash the table and get the slide rule under the bottle and then pull it out from under the bottle" game. Well, when our coach saw this, he became a skeptic. The following course of dialogue was so fluid and perfect, it was astounding. Everybody in the classroom starting crying they were laughing so hard, everybody, no exceptions. It was a good 3 minutes before we could regain control.
*I slam table and Truman unsuccessfully removes the slide rule from under the bottle*
Teacher: Were you actually expecting to pull that out?
Truman: That's what SHE said!
*Cue shocked/well-deserved laughter*
That is what happens in speech team, folks, amazing things. Amazing things.
*I slam table and Truman unsuccessfully removes the slide rule from under the bottle*
Teacher: Were you actually expecting to pull that out?
Truman: That's what SHE said!
*Cue shocked/well-deserved laughter*
That is what happens in speech team, folks, amazing things. Amazing things.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
A conversation between fanboys. . .
I had a conversation with a fellow Wii Fanboy today. Here's that conversation. We're obsessed. The only way to really share that conversation with you involves you clicking the following link.
Please click this link.
Please.
You will enjoy it, I promise!
http://jzzsxm.googlepages.com/Fanboy.htm
Please click this link.
Please.
You will enjoy it, I promise!
http://jzzsxm.googlepages.com/Fanboy.htm
Swing Dancing
Yes, I went swing dancing. Amazing, huh? Michael, the "I don't dance" king of the world finally just bit his lip and stepped out of his comfort zone last night. How did this happen? Well. . .
Yesterday (Friday) I was text-messaging Lacey when she mentioned she was going swing dancing that evening. I mentioned that it sounded like she'd have a good time. Next thing I know, my phone rings.
"Hey Michael, want to come swing dancing tonight?"
"Uh, I don't actually know how to swing dance."
"They do a quick class beforehand and then I'll help you!"
"Alright, sure."
I changed into my "spiffy" outfit (Black shoes and pants, silver collared shirt) and got all ready to go.
An hour later my dad and I met Lacey at the Woodburn outlet mall and I hopped into their car. Eventually, we made it to the dance studio, but here's the catch. It was pouring outside and it was dark, so the car ride took much longer than expected, ie, we missed the quick class beforehand. Actually, that's not entirely true, we caught the last ten minutes of it, which only proved to about half the people there that I was a complete n00b. We had a big circle with two layers, girls on the inside, guys on the outside, and the guys were rotating every minute or so. I hadn't even learned the basic footwork yet, so I was pretty much useless during the class. After the class they turned the lights down and people actually started dancing, that was about 8:00.
I'm not gonna lie, the first hour was rough. Remember, I am so far outside my comfort zone at this point that I'm about 2 seconds from just running away, but I forced myself to stay and learn. The problem was, there was nobody there to teach me. You see, the guy leads, and so whenever I was dancing with Lacey, I was supposed to do all the stuff. I asked her what I was suppsoed to do for each "move" and she didn't know because she never had to do it. This was a problem, so what ended up happening was that for a while, she danced with a bunch of other people and I watched and learned as fast as I can. I'll tell you right now, that is a hard thing to do.
Eventually, I pretty much got the footwork down, which was nice because then I could actually start to focus on the spinning and what-not. Towards the end I was nowhere near good, but I was much better, better than a lot of the people there. Lacey's feet started to hurt towards the end and we had to sit for a while, but there were a couple of songs there that, had an inexperienced person watched, they would have thought that we both knew what we were doing.
The only big "oops" that happened was Lacey decided that at the end of the song she was going to do a dip. Um, coulda told the guy that's been swing dancing for a grand old total of 45 minutes! I'll spare you the gory details, but it ended up with us on the ground. I think I would have been more emberassed except that it wasn't a crash or anything, it was a gradual descent to the ground (that almost resulted in me breaking my ankle). Other than that, the evening went swimmingly. Oh, and the music was almost distracting because I realized that for every single song, I'd either a) played it or b) owned a CD with it on it. I own a lot of swing.
At 11:30 we finished up and took off. We drove down to my house, Lacey was completely exhausted, she'd been up since 6 am. We got to my house, she came inside and said goodnight to Quincy, we hugged, and then she took off to go sleep. I got home at about 1 am. I stayed up until she got home to make sure she made it safely, and then I went to sleep.
That was my evening last night. Impromptu swing dancing! Totally outside my comfort zone, some very awkward "Why am I here", "Can I just cry", "I really don't like this", moments, but as I got more comfortable I actually started to have a good time. Swing dancing is really fun, I recommend it. Definitely catch the ENTIRE class before the dancing starts, it makes life easier. I'll probably continue to swing dance, believe it or not, I'd like to learn to be pretty good so I don't make an idiot of myself if ever I need dance. Alright, that's it, the Snively Swing experience. Sorry, no pictures, camera was out of batteries and I was dancing. Ciao!
Yesterday (Friday) I was text-messaging Lacey when she mentioned she was going swing dancing that evening. I mentioned that it sounded like she'd have a good time. Next thing I know, my phone rings.
"Hey Michael, want to come swing dancing tonight?"
"Uh, I don't actually know how to swing dance."
"They do a quick class beforehand and then I'll help you!"
"Alright, sure."
I changed into my "spiffy" outfit (Black shoes and pants, silver collared shirt) and got all ready to go.
An hour later my dad and I met Lacey at the Woodburn outlet mall and I hopped into their car. Eventually, we made it to the dance studio, but here's the catch. It was pouring outside and it was dark, so the car ride took much longer than expected, ie, we missed the quick class beforehand. Actually, that's not entirely true, we caught the last ten minutes of it, which only proved to about half the people there that I was a complete n00b. We had a big circle with two layers, girls on the inside, guys on the outside, and the guys were rotating every minute or so. I hadn't even learned the basic footwork yet, so I was pretty much useless during the class. After the class they turned the lights down and people actually started dancing, that was about 8:00.
I'm not gonna lie, the first hour was rough. Remember, I am so far outside my comfort zone at this point that I'm about 2 seconds from just running away, but I forced myself to stay and learn. The problem was, there was nobody there to teach me. You see, the guy leads, and so whenever I was dancing with Lacey, I was supposed to do all the stuff. I asked her what I was suppsoed to do for each "move" and she didn't know because she never had to do it. This was a problem, so what ended up happening was that for a while, she danced with a bunch of other people and I watched and learned as fast as I can. I'll tell you right now, that is a hard thing to do.
Eventually, I pretty much got the footwork down, which was nice because then I could actually start to focus on the spinning and what-not. Towards the end I was nowhere near good, but I was much better, better than a lot of the people there. Lacey's feet started to hurt towards the end and we had to sit for a while, but there were a couple of songs there that, had an inexperienced person watched, they would have thought that we both knew what we were doing.
The only big "oops" that happened was Lacey decided that at the end of the song she was going to do a dip. Um, coulda told the guy that's been swing dancing for a grand old total of 45 minutes! I'll spare you the gory details, but it ended up with us on the ground. I think I would have been more emberassed except that it wasn't a crash or anything, it was a gradual descent to the ground (that almost resulted in me breaking my ankle). Other than that, the evening went swimmingly. Oh, and the music was almost distracting because I realized that for every single song, I'd either a) played it or b) owned a CD with it on it. I own a lot of swing.
At 11:30 we finished up and took off. We drove down to my house, Lacey was completely exhausted, she'd been up since 6 am. We got to my house, she came inside and said goodnight to Quincy, we hugged, and then she took off to go sleep. I got home at about 1 am. I stayed up until she got home to make sure she made it safely, and then I went to sleep.
That was my evening last night. Impromptu swing dancing! Totally outside my comfort zone, some very awkward "Why am I here", "Can I just cry", "I really don't like this", moments, but as I got more comfortable I actually started to have a good time. Swing dancing is really fun, I recommend it. Definitely catch the ENTIRE class before the dancing starts, it makes life easier. I'll probably continue to swing dance, believe it or not, I'd like to learn to be pretty good so I don't make an idiot of myself if ever I need dance. Alright, that's it, the Snively Swing experience. Sorry, no pictures, camera was out of batteries and I was dancing. Ciao!
Friday, November 10, 2006
SOMB Awards
Last night, 11/9/06, were the 2006 Sprague Olympian Marching Band Awards. It was a very exciting evening, so I've decided to blog it. Allow me to give you a play by play. . .
The presentation was begun by Jacob Pratt. He introduced himself as band council president and then led into the awards ceremony. The awards ceremony consisted of section leaders giving out awards to outstanding individuals, and here's a recap. I couldn't remember all of the awards given, but I did my best. If you remember one, please leave it in a comment so I can add it!
Brass (Presented by Truman Capps):
Outstanding Veteran -- Truman Capps
Outstanding Rookie -- Shequana Smith
Most Improved Rookie -- Nick Geiger
Most Improved Vet -- Margaret
Woodwinds (Presented by Michael Snively):
Outstanding Veteran -- Christy Baggett
Outstanding Rookie -- Ethan Alano
Most Improved Rookie -- Erin Kahn
Most Improved Vet -- Steven Ponec
Drumline (Presented by Joe Lipscomb):
Outstanding Veteran -- Joe Lipscomb
Outstanding Rookie -- Austin Baker
Most Improved Rookie -- Logan
Most Improved Vet -- Justin Cothran
Front Ensemble (Presented by Trenton Young):
Most Outstanding -- Trenton Young
Most Improved -- Drew Harker
Color Guard (Presented by Analisa Reyna):
Outstanding Veteran -- Analisa
Outstanding Rookie -- [Can't Remember]
Most Improved Rookie -- [Can't Remember]
Most Improved Vet -- [Can't Remember]
Spirit Award (Presented by Alyssa Valdez):
Male -- Trevor Nelson
Female -- Margaret
Class Awards (Presented by Alyssa Valdez):
Most Outstanding Freshman -- Brady McCulley
Most Outstanding Sophomore -- Nick Ogle
Most Outstanding Junior -- Brandon Haley
Most Outstanding Senior -- Michael Snively
Kevin Alano came up, talked a bit about the band boosters and thanked the parents for their help with the season.
We took a break from awards for a bit to watch our Finals performance at PCI. I was on tech support, so it was my job to make sure the movie played without a hitch. It played without a hitch. I don't have a video of it online, but DVD's are available for purchase, just get in touch with me (comment).
After the video, we continued with some awards. The funny awards were presented
Funny Awards (Presented by Jacob Pratt):
Hottie Award -- Nick Ogle
"Sorry, Your Name isn't Andrew" Award -- Tom
"Do you have a question" Award -- Analisa
"Kid at heart and most likely to be mistaken for a student" Award -- Mr. Such
"Best Impressions and most likely to not be himself" Award -- Mr. Howard
After all the awards had been given out, Mr. Such and Mr. Howard both gave speeches. Both speeches were very nice. After their speeches, Jake and I gave out one final award to Katie Such, for coordinating PCI and making it amazing. She got a trophy.
To finish off the evening, the slideshow. Regular readers of my blog know that I am the one in charge of creating the slideshow, and that I was very excited about it for some reason, but I WOULDN'T TELL YOU WHY! Well, last night the secret came out, and just as I predicted, it was very well received. Here's the story:
This being my senior year, I wanted this slideshow to be absolutely amazing. In order to be amazing, it had to have a certain element to it that no other slideshow has ever had. Well, I thought of that element, but it was going to be hard to attain. If you've ever seen a movie trailer, you've heard a particular man's voice. You know, that deep gravelly "In a world, where . . ." voice that's in every movie trailer ever, the movie voice guy. He was in a Geico commercial recently as well. His name is Don LaFontaine, and I decided to e-mail him, so I went to his website, got his e-mail address, and wrote him an e-mail. I explained that I was the historian for my band and that I was wondering if he would be willing to do a short soundbite for my slideshow. The next day I got an e-mail back. It said "Sure, I'd be happy to -- no charge -- my pleasure. I'll e-mail it to you on Monday". This coming from the man that gets paid thousands of dollars to speak. On Monday, sure enough, I received the e-mail with the MP3. He did two takes, for a total of ten seconds of audio, worth thousands of dollars.
Since the beginning of band camp, our director has used the phrase "In the beginning, there was rhythm" as a constant reminder that we need to internalize pulse. Well, this seemed catchphrasey enough, so this is what I asked Don LaFontaine to say. So, as you watch the following slideshow and hear that voice in the beginning, remember this:
Yes, that is the movie trailer voice guy.
No, no other slideshow has his voice in it.
Yes, although the tone of this blog entry is very reserved, I was uber excited when I found out he'd help me!
Here's the slideshow, enjoy. Turn your speakers on!
As you can see, the slideshow was uploaded to YouTube. I have also uploaded it to Google Videos, where you can actually download it as an MP4 file. The links are below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8Nt-sjt-7U
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2546356929785449331&hl=en
The slideshow was a huge success. It seemed as though everybody really enjoyed it, based on how many hands I shook afterwards and how many copies were requested. I'm glad everybody liked it, I hope I can make the spring slideshow just as good!
That concludes awards night, it was a very nice evening. I felt satisfied when I went home and I hope others did as well. Not everybody gets awards, so no worries everybody! This year was the first year for me to get an award since freshman year, and my freshman year practically everybody got an award. They're harder to get now, much fewer of them. So be happy for others, there is always next year, and remember that Marching Band is supposed to be fun, not a competition.
(just a reminder, if you can remember who else got awards, please comment)
The presentation was begun by Jacob Pratt. He introduced himself as band council president and then led into the awards ceremony. The awards ceremony consisted of section leaders giving out awards to outstanding individuals, and here's a recap. I couldn't remember all of the awards given, but I did my best. If you remember one, please leave it in a comment so I can add it!
Brass (Presented by Truman Capps):
Outstanding Veteran -- Truman Capps
Outstanding Rookie -- Shequana Smith
Most Improved Rookie -- Nick Geiger
Most Improved Vet -- Margaret
Woodwinds (Presented by Michael Snively):
Outstanding Veteran -- Christy Baggett
Outstanding Rookie -- Ethan Alano
Most Improved Rookie -- Erin Kahn
Most Improved Vet -- Steven Ponec
Drumline (Presented by Joe Lipscomb):
Outstanding Veteran -- Joe Lipscomb
Outstanding Rookie -- Austin Baker
Most Improved Rookie -- Logan
Most Improved Vet -- Justin Cothran
Front Ensemble (Presented by Trenton Young):
Most Outstanding -- Trenton Young
Most Improved -- Drew Harker
Color Guard (Presented by Analisa Reyna):
Outstanding Veteran -- Analisa
Outstanding Rookie -- [Can't Remember]
Most Improved Rookie -- [Can't Remember]
Most Improved Vet -- [Can't Remember]
Spirit Award (Presented by Alyssa Valdez):
Male -- Trevor Nelson
Female -- Margaret
Class Awards (Presented by Alyssa Valdez):
Most Outstanding Freshman -- Brady McCulley
Most Outstanding Sophomore -- Nick Ogle
Most Outstanding Junior -- Brandon Haley
Most Outstanding Senior -- Michael Snively
Kevin Alano came up, talked a bit about the band boosters and thanked the parents for their help with the season.
We took a break from awards for a bit to watch our Finals performance at PCI. I was on tech support, so it was my job to make sure the movie played without a hitch. It played without a hitch. I don't have a video of it online, but DVD's are available for purchase, just get in touch with me (comment).
After the video, we continued with some awards. The funny awards were presented
Funny Awards (Presented by Jacob Pratt):
Hottie Award -- Nick Ogle
"Sorry, Your Name isn't Andrew" Award -- Tom
"Do you have a question" Award -- Analisa
"Kid at heart and most likely to be mistaken for a student" Award -- Mr. Such
"Best Impressions and most likely to not be himself" Award -- Mr. Howard
After all the awards had been given out, Mr. Such and Mr. Howard both gave speeches. Both speeches were very nice. After their speeches, Jake and I gave out one final award to Katie Such, for coordinating PCI and making it amazing. She got a trophy.
To finish off the evening, the slideshow. Regular readers of my blog know that I am the one in charge of creating the slideshow, and that I was very excited about it for some reason, but I WOULDN'T TELL YOU WHY! Well, last night the secret came out, and just as I predicted, it was very well received. Here's the story:
This being my senior year, I wanted this slideshow to be absolutely amazing. In order to be amazing, it had to have a certain element to it that no other slideshow has ever had. Well, I thought of that element, but it was going to be hard to attain. If you've ever seen a movie trailer, you've heard a particular man's voice. You know, that deep gravelly "In a world, where . . ." voice that's in every movie trailer ever, the movie voice guy. He was in a Geico commercial recently as well. His name is Don LaFontaine, and I decided to e-mail him, so I went to his website, got his e-mail address, and wrote him an e-mail. I explained that I was the historian for my band and that I was wondering if he would be willing to do a short soundbite for my slideshow. The next day I got an e-mail back. It said "Sure, I'd be happy to -- no charge -- my pleasure. I'll e-mail it to you on Monday". This coming from the man that gets paid thousands of dollars to speak. On Monday, sure enough, I received the e-mail with the MP3. He did two takes, for a total of ten seconds of audio, worth thousands of dollars.
Since the beginning of band camp, our director has used the phrase "In the beginning, there was rhythm" as a constant reminder that we need to internalize pulse. Well, this seemed catchphrasey enough, so this is what I asked Don LaFontaine to say. So, as you watch the following slideshow and hear that voice in the beginning, remember this:
Yes, that is the movie trailer voice guy.
No, no other slideshow has his voice in it.
Yes, although the tone of this blog entry is very reserved, I was uber excited when I found out he'd help me!
Here's the slideshow, enjoy. Turn your speakers on!
As you can see, the slideshow was uploaded to YouTube. I have also uploaded it to Google Videos, where you can actually download it as an MP4 file. The links are below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8Nt-sjt-7U
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2546356929785449331&hl=en
The slideshow was a huge success. It seemed as though everybody really enjoyed it, based on how many hands I shook afterwards and how many copies were requested. I'm glad everybody liked it, I hope I can make the spring slideshow just as good!
That concludes awards night, it was a very nice evening. I felt satisfied when I went home and I hope others did as well. Not everybody gets awards, so no worries everybody! This year was the first year for me to get an award since freshman year, and my freshman year practically everybody got an award. They're harder to get now, much fewer of them. So be happy for others, there is always next year, and remember that Marching Band is supposed to be fun, not a competition.
(just a reminder, if you can remember who else got awards, please comment)
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