DanHagen.com

Wow. It’s been a little while, hasn’t it? As of now, I am savoring the two more free days before I must go back to school. Until then, I will continue to just eat, sleep, and sit here on my butt while browsing the interwebs.

In a way, it’s also quite amazing how much time I’ve wasted. With all these days off, I could’ve made a movie. I could’ve built something. I could’ve done something totally awesome and productive that would have given me a feeling of satisfaction and maybe even some profit. But I haven’t.

I blame it squarely on the Nintendo DS.

I suppose this is where I’ll start introducing some of the things I received for both my birthday and Christmas - they’re both in December - so if it seems like a pretty dang good list to you, keep in mind this is for more than one occasion. My family is actually not that rich. Really.

1. Onyx Black Nintendo DS Lite (It’s about time. Before this, my only handheld was a Gameboy Color.)
2. Planet Puzzle League (Very addictive.)
3. Transformers: Autobots (Not bad for a licensed game.)
4. Western Digital 120GB external hard drive (One of the newer, smaller ones that can slide right into your pocket. Very nice.)
5. New camera tripod (Very nice as well! It’s much more robust and sturdy than the crappy tripod I was using before, and it even has built in remote-controls on the handle if you have a Sony camera. Bada-bing.)
6. America: A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction (No comment here. If you want some good humor, check this one out.)
7. Numerous small toys, candy, money, and other things that you probably don’t care about.

So there you have it. Of course, I realize that Christmas isn’t about getting free stuff. With that, I hope that everyone had an opportunity to relax and be with their families. Have a happy new year.

Looking around my grandpa’s house, I decided to check what was on top of the old dishware cabinet. There, sitting behind the fake plant decor - who knows how many decades it’s been sitting there - is a brown leather case. I open the case, and what do I find? An antique 8mm camera, manufactured by a company called “Keystone” in the year 1936. Unfortunately, these things aren’t very rare, considering the fact I saw one of them go for pretty cheap on ebay. I think it’s a treasure either way.

Also, today I decided to dive in and buy Super Mario Galaxy. I’ll give you my initial impressions once it comes in the mail, and once I have spent some time with it.

Finally - speaking of Amazon - I managed to come across a book called “YouTube for Dummies“. Yes, I agree. This book really shouldn’t exist.. and yet, it does exist, because I just found it on Amazon.

I think the word “dummies” is loosely used in this series. Rather, for YouTube, I think they should’ve used the term “Stupid idiots who don’t know how to follow instructions”. (If you happened to buy this book: I am extremely sorry.)

On an extremely irregular basis do I only write a post about one of my classes, and one of my classes alone.

However, multimedia class is a special class to me. Special, because it is one of those times when I get to sit down and become involved of the trials and frustrations of Adobe CS3, a visually-challenged optical drive, and a computer that crashes on a regular basis.

I’ll elaborate by creating a simple time-line of a regular day in multimedia, which should give you a good idea of some of the crap I have to go through.

1:00 - I get to class, albeit a little early. I log onto my computer, open up Premiere and see if there is any way I can deinterlace my video. Why? Because those horizontal lines are really annoying. Do you know what I’m talking about? Interlacing? …Nevermind. Either way, my computer ends up crashing within about five minutes anyway.

1:07 - Class has actually started, and I happen to have my good friend Donald sitting next to me, sharing similar stress and frustrations, simply because our independent movie projects are due today. Crap.

1:15 - My computer’s optical drive has issues. For the life of me, I cannot get my friggin’ computer to recognize that there is a blank disc in the slot. This is blasphemy. This is madness!

1:24 - As for deinterlacing: Screw it. I can’t find a decent way to create a good deinterlaced video file, and for the record, the interlacing really doesn’t look that bad on the full-resolution file. So it will just have to do.

1:40 - After like, an infinity amount of time, I came to the conclusion that my disc drive has gone to crap (It also received the proverbial “screw you” treatment). With that, I put the blank disc in Donald’s machine next to me, and what do you know? It works.

1:55 - Paperwork. Paperwork can kiss my butt. Nonetheless, it’s needed for the video contest. Finally, the dang thing is turned in. Oh yeah. I can forget about all that crap.

2:10 - I turn off my computer earlier than I usually do. As a final kick in the balls, my computer crashes again, right before I can hit the “Shut Down” button. Pfft. You got nothin’ on me.

I certainly feel like I’ve accomplished something. In a way, I am very anxious to get out my camera once again and shoot another movie. That’s not to say that I need a decent plan. Planning sucks. But I need to do it in order to create something worth watching. One thing I do know is that my new movie will be lengthier, and it will not be quite as artsy as my Linux promotional ad (which was a little weird for some people).

In semi-related news, my Driver’s Education class and I have been looking at different careers to get into. As of now, the main thing on my mind is “Computer Softare Systems Engineering” (put simply: software engineering).

Looking at the work interests of a software engineer, I get these results:

• Realistic — You are a “doer”. You like physical activities and projects. You like to find the answers to problems by doing hands-on work instead of talking about solutions.
• Investigative — You are a “thinker”. When you have a problem, you like to analyze it and look at different ways to solve it. You like to work by yourself, and you don’t like explaining your ideas to other people.

Perfect. Just perfect. I’m not being sarcastic either. “You like to work by yourself, and you don’t like explaining your ideas to other people.” Rock on, man. Rock on.

Additionally:

People who do this job report that:

• You would sit most of the time. There’s some walking and standing. You may have to lift and carry things like books, papers or tools weighing 10 lbs. or less.
• Work in this occupation involves using your hands to hold, control, and feel objects more than one-third of the time
• Work in this occupation involves making repetitive motions more than one-third of the time
• Work in this occupation requires being inside most of the time
• Work in this occupation involves sitting more than one-third of the time

I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited to work as a software engineer.

As many of you probably know, I purchased a new domain name. Multiple people have exclaimed “Why? LessThanDan.com was so cool!” But nonetheless, I was kind of forced to. You see, my domain name evidently expired yesterday, and one way or another, some stupid domain parking company actually bought out my domain before I even noticed. I feel like I’ve been raped. So, two things: I could probably buy it back at some ridiculous price, or simply get a new one. Obviously, the disadvantages of getting a new domain are that people have no choice but to update all their links and bookmarks, as well as remember a brand new URL. In this case, I don’t want to buy it back for a jacked-up price.

However, there is a considerable upside to this. For one thing, my domain name is.. err… well, it’s my actual name. This means that (a) The address is actually easier to remember for many people, and (b) The chances of searching my name on google and having my site appear on the first page of results are significantly greater. So in a way, I’m kind of happy with the way things are (I don’t remember danhagen.com being available a year ago, when I first got into the world of paid hosting). Hurrah for convinience!

On a somewhat unrelated note (although it does have to do with me getting screwed), all of my personal files at school were deleted.

Yes; that’s right. Some sad, lonely person - who probably lives in a broken home with negligent parents - is hacking different students’ accounts on the school network and deleting everyone’s stuff. Except, I don’t think “hacking” is the correct term in this case. Rather, I think it’s called “Getting into the Windows command prompt and being a douche bag”. Regardless, I hope this kid gets what’s coming to him…

…because it’s really a kick in the crotch to have all of my precious hours of movie editing go down the drain.

Life sucks.

I realize that Halloween actually transpired a few days ago, but hey - I’m still going to write about it anyway. I’ll be quick to let you know that I enjoyed giving candy to little kids in costumes as I usually do.

The Halloween assembly at school was also held a couple of days late as usual (yesterday). It was corny and redundant, as school assemblies usually are - anyone can admit that - and one of the regular traditions is to show student films that are craptacular at best.

Yesterday was no exception.

Because of it being a horror film in this case, it leads me to rant on a lot of the same issues that plague box-office movies as well as cheap student ones: It was uncreative. It had no character development. Most of all, it naturally ripped off almost every other horror movie in existence. While there was an abundance of unoriginality, there was a painful lack of any tripod-use. Now, you may be thinking, “What the crap, Dan? This is high school. No one really cares about character development.” My response is this: Exactly. They apparently didn’t care enough to make a half-interesting movie.

Have an extremely generic plot/storyline, combine it with poor cinematography, and the result is a movie that no one wants to watch.

With this, during lunch, my friend Nate and I discussed how we could make a great horror film (It’s nice to know someone who thinks on the same wavelength as you). We both acknowledged how poorly thought-out this year’s school halloween movie had been, and we came up with some pointers on making a masterful new movie that no one has ever seen before. I realize that this sounds fairly ambitious… yet I feel I can do it. In other cases, I may be able to criticize something, even though I can’t do anything better than it. In this case, however, I feel I can safely use criticism because I can make something better.

Am I bragging? I guess that’s what it sounds like. Before you go, however, check out my personal list of things to make a really neat and refreshing new horror movie.

• No screamers. Specifically, I’m talking about those cheap scenes that involve an image flashing onto the screen for a split-second in order to surprise you. This, my friends, is lame. Showing a hand materialize out of nowhere to suddenly grab someone’s ankle has been done a million times before. It’s cheap, and it’s lost it’s value. (I suppose that if you’re making a box-office movie, and you want to make a lot of money, then it’s more practical to film the same old cheap screamers in order to boost sales. On the other hand, if this movie is for non-profit purposes, then I think you’re pretty much a failure.)
• Intense chase scenes are no longer intense. I’m talking in terms of horror films, when someone continually runs down different different halls and corridors only to keep encountering the same exact thing that they were hiding from in the first place. Yes, we know: You’re retarded and you can’t find your way out. Just do something different, please. Which leads me to the next thing.
• Just because you’re trying to run away from something, doesn’t mean you’re car won’t start. I’m being serious. Is something running after you, right on your tail? Get in your car. Insert the key all the way. Turn it. The engine should come to life, and you should be able to drive away. Really.
• Doors are tired of getting locked by themselves. After all, they are made for people to go through. I realize I’m getting picky here, but again: Please pick something else.
• Please let us know the characters. This is where I will really start explaining why character development can be important. Just think about it for a moment. If we could really learn to connect with the people and their personalities, couldn’t things just be a bit more scarier, considering the fact that we can now imagine ourselves in their shoes? No one really cares if it’s just some stranger. Fortunately, most good horror movies manage to achieve this. On the other hand, the experience isn’t so interesting when this tip is forgotten.

Can you think of anything else? Perhaps I will add more when my brain is functioning better. All I can say is that if I am to make a good school horror movie for next year, it will not have the same, tired old elements. “Screamers” are an especially notable one, as this is the only way that most movies get their scares. My movie will be quite the opposite: Steady and slow-paced.

Wait and see.

Yes, yes, I know. It’s been a while since my last update. One thing I’ve noticed is that my website seems to have been demoted on Google’s indexes. Now, whenever you use the search term “lessthandan”, my site no longer appears first. Fortunately, this may change soon. Right now things are a bit iffy, only because of the way my domain name is set up (It creates non-canonical URLs for my blog, making it less optimized for search engines). My domain expires in a few days, and when it does, I will simply re-register it with my current webhost rather than using a DNS, which may improve some things.

In other news, I am enthusiastically working on a new short film for school. It’s called Open Source and it’s a horror movie with a geeky message behind it. I finished shooting it last Saturday, and I’m actually quite happy with the way the video turned out (the lighting effects and camera angles are impressive). As of now, I’m still in the process of editing it in Adobe Premiere Pro, which is an excellent piece of software. Hopefully it will be finished soon.

In the meantime, here is an extremely nerdy picture of me setting up a web server in my basement. Click on it for a larger image.

Edit: The domain issue has actually been fixed now, so now my blog strictly uses canonical URLs. Just thought I’d let you know.