DanHagen.com

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.)

Do you ever use hair gel or hair spray? Maybe just occasionally? Only gel? Well, whatever. Assuming that you do use any of these products, let me ask you a question: Ever notice the stupid labels that companies deceptively slap on them? I can’t help wondering why they all have a “mega” hold, or a “super” hold, or a “maximum” hold. This is about all that’s available. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a “medium” hold, let alone a “light” or “weak” hold. Allow me to demonstrate.

Zooming up on this container of hair gel, it is clearly marked “maximum hold”. Maximum. For the record, the strength is displayed on a scale from one to ten! This stuff must be pretty friggin’ strong. I’d imagine that once applied, it could magically transform my hair into pipe cleaners for me to bend and sculpt as I please (You gotta admit; that would be pretty sweet). But, no. It doesn’t stop there.

You gotta love this. Looking at another container by the same company, we see that this is apparently “Mega Mega + Hold”. Unbelievable. Somehow they were able to surpass the maximum, simply by putting a plus-sign in front of the scale. Genius.

A different brand, a different type of gel. Upon closer inspection, it can apparently maintain “Maximum lift“. Lift? Alright. I don’t know what the hell that means, but yeah, alright.

Ooh. Here we have yet another “Mega Mega Hold” type of hair gel, just like the last one, except… look at the scale. The nine digit is highlighted, rather than the ten. Uh-oh. Inconsistent much?

After this particular analyzation, I think we can come to the conclusion that hair gel is pretty dang strong these days (My head is still spinning from the label that implied a hold over the maximum). I mean, wow. How is this even legal?

What bugs me even more - as I said earlier - is the fact that I can’t seem to find any hair gel that’s of a lesser strength. To illustrate my point and make it easier to comprehend, I went into GIMP and sketched up a crappy diagram.

What’s the point of all of those smaller numbers if you’re never going to use them? Pfft.

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.

As a fan of electronic music, particularly trance/vocal-trance, there is something rather annoying that I would like to make clear to those who don’t understand. It’s the fact that songs are ignorantly referred to as “techno music” as long as they have any apparent synthesizers or electronic motifs in them (This is usually followed by me putting my hand over my face in disgust and saying “Good crap!”).

Some people know better, but as for those who lack a decent knowledge of modern music - whom are way too many - the error is rampant. Let me regurgitate and simplify a common, but incorrect definition of what techno really is:

Techno is music that consists of electronic instrumentation.

I could elaborate further on this, but this is the basic and general definition of techno music. It’s also very wrong.

Allow me to cut the crap and clarify the difference between electronic music, techno, and any other terms that may incorrectly describe the same thing. If you look it up on the all-knowing Wikipedia, you get a nice summary of electronica today (which is different from techno):

Electronic music refers to music that emphasizes the use of electronic musical instruments or electronic music technology as a central aspect of the sound of the music. Historically electronic music was considered to be any music created with the use of electronic musical instruments or electronic processing, but in modern times, that distinction has been lost because almost all recorded music today, and the majority of live music performances, depends on extensive use of electronics. Today, the term electronic music serves to differentiate music that uses electronics as its focal point or inspiration, from music that uses electronics mainly in service of creating an intended production that may have some electronic elements in the sound but does not focus upon them.

I thought it was necessary to include that last part, because it’s important to know that almost all professional music today is made with some type of electronic equipment or synthesizer (including movie soundtracks, kid stuff, and much more). It’s obviously wrong to call orchestral background music “electronic” simply because it was produced in a computer. It’s just more practical to create it digitally than having a dozen people holding an instrument; that’s all.

If you are now dumbfounded and wondering what “techno” really is, it’s a form of electronic dance music that began a few decades ago in western Europe. This is one of the many subgenres of electronica, some being very specific as well as more obscure. These may include “acid“, “drill ‘n’ bass“, and several others. I, myself, am personally fond of vocal trance.

So there you have it. The thumbnail image accompanying this post is from the music video of “DotA” by Basshunter, which can be viewed here (Thanks, Levi).

Let me be quick to emphasize: In no way do I recommend viewing pornography. If it’s going to degrade your mind and destroy your life to any degree, I suggest that you refrain from it and all of it’s forms.

Now that that’s over with, I’m going to bring up something - something that’s been irritating me recently. It’s a misconception that a lot of people seem to have. Of course, I’m not saying that everyone has this problem (many people who read this blog probably do not); however, with my upbringing and the dominant religion in my area, many of my local peers give me the impression that they are a bit confused. That, or maybe it’s just me.

I’ll start out with one question: What is pornography?

Last night I was conducting an interesting social experiment via instant messaging - I didn’t even intend for it to be an experiment at first - but I was rotating certain images for my display picture, and a couple of the girls on my contact list willingly gave me their reactions.

To explain, there is an artist I know of who is named Howard David Johnson (his website is crap, but his paintings are gorgeous). Because I am a sucker for fantasy-themed paintings and chicks that look like fairies, I decided to use a couple of his images as my IM avatar. For good measure, the women depicted in some of his paintings are somewhat “revealing” if you will.

Take a look at the image to the right. One of my friends (who is a girl) was talking to me when I set it as my display picture, and upon seeing it, she exclaimed “That image is a bit frightening!”

I was shocked at this comment… and I was also interested as to why she had such thoughts. When I asked her about it, I got the response “She’s a bit revealed.”

If you are reading this, you may be thinking: “Huh? How is this relevant? That picture is certainly nothing pornographic.” You know what? You are exactly right, my friend. It certainly isn’t pornographic. My friend here probably didn’t think of it as porn either; however, she was still under the impression that it was bad or “inappropriate”.

I suppose that there are one or two things that I may need to explain. For one thing, whether the above image is pornography or not depends on your actual definition of pornography. So, let’s backtrack. What is pornography?

Let’s look at the first and foremost definition, which is also probably the most obvious:

any sexually explicit writing and/or picture intended to arouse sexual desire.

Alright. Makes sense, doesn’t it? For now, I’m going to dismiss the idea that porn is bad “because it arouses sexual desire”. After all, sex is a part of human nature and life altogether. I could get in a huge discussion about morals and religious belief, but that’s a whole different story. Instead, I’m going to give a different definition of pornography that further illustrates my point.

something that makes sex look inappropriate and dirty.

Woah. I feel like I’m starting to get somewhere with this.

As I said, sex is a part of natural life. Life is a series of chemical reactions, and life’s ultimate goal in nature is to thrive and reproduce. I think most people would agree that the power to create human life is pretty amazing, and if it didn’t exist, then we would not exist. If you are spiritual at all, you would also likely agree that the ability to give birth is a sacred and God-given power, right? Right. I won’t go too far into religion - I’m only cementing the idea that sexual reproduction is obviously a pretty big thing… something that people can take for granted.

From that perspective, pornography is bad in the sense that it takes sex and turns it into something perverse. From the latter definition, we know that the above image is, again, not porno (considering the fact that it barely even contains anything relating to it).

Let’s take another step up. There are numerous R-rated movies where there are lengthy romance and sex scenes, many of which do not hesitate to actually show reproductive body-parts that are normally kept under wraps in most situations. (It’s kind of amazing what the MPAA will allow for an R rating.) Movie ratings and age restrictions aside, I have another question: All of this sexual intercourse that is depicted in movies… is it pornography?

Not necessarily.

All too often do people dismiss a sex scene in a movie as sleazy material that is merely intended to give you a hard-on. Rather, many of these acts can still really hold true to the beauty that sex actually is. This is a major point I wanted to touch on before I get too tired of this post.

I’ll probably just conclude right here before I get so tired, at which time I will probably go as far as deleting this. My basic objective here was to just give you some food for thought. And, finally…

…get your mind out of the gutter, morons. Yeesh.

Wow. Just wow.

How long have I been troubleshooting my website? I’ve been facing the debacle of trying to get my domain name fully functional ever since I moved to a new web host. When was that? Over a week ago. A week.

And yet, that whole wait wasn’t even necessary. My domain name has still not been transferred over to my new service - perhaps because the guys over at the 1&1 transfer department are difficult to cooperate with (I almost called them douchebags) - but fortunately, before I had canceled my old hosting account, I had set up a DNS with the domain name to work with my new service, and I simply just had to tinker with some of the settings with my new host to get things working. Once my domain expires, I will reregister it with NFSN.

…NFSN, that is, NearlyFreeSpeech.net. They are my new web hosting provider. There are multiple reasons why I switched, which I will sort into an easy-to-comprehend bulleted list:

• Customer service. 1and1.com really isn’t too bad of a host… but they aren’t too good either. While they settle with outsourced tech support in India, NearlyFreeSpeech actually really cares about their customers.
• Pricing. What really struck me about NFSN is the way the payment works. You only pay for what you use. It can be equated to a pay-as-you-go cell phone plan: You pay one cent per megabyte per month, one dollar per gigabyte of data transfer, etc. At this rate, I am only paying about one dollar a month for hosting. I need to be careful, though; obviously I don’t want to store gigabytes of data on my server for the sake of not paying a ton more money.
• SQL. 1&1’s MySQL service was pretty slow. Thanks to NFSN, my site loads a couple seconds faster. This may not seem like much, but since Wordpress relies on SQL for dynamically generating pages then it can really mean a lot.

I think that’s all I’m really going to say for now. There are plenty of other things I could write about, but at the moment I’m just sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I’ll conclude by recommending NearlyFreeSpeech.net as a great web host. There’s just two things I want to emphasize if you’re considering using it: If you’re a newbie to web administration, or if you plan on using it for storing large files, then I suggest you go somewhere else.