Update

Hello again nonexistent readers. I haven't posted much lately because I haven't felt like posting, and I haven't done much with this blog. I just updated it with a new template and a simplified layout, so maybe I'll start writing on this thing and promoting it actively again.

New Domain

The blog can now be accessed from kieranpertnav.tk. It will also still be accessible from the original blogspot address.

I'm a Production Assistant! [and other updates]

Wow, so the first post in over a month. I guess I haven't been that motivated to blog, even though I really should. But anyways, the reason I'm finally posting again is I have big news.

I get to be a production assistant on the show Mantracker for 1 day. It's nothing glamorous, but I get to be on the set among the crew, which is really super awesome.

The blog may be getting a new domain soon, so keep watch for that.

Hagen Dazs

The debate tournament went great, I went undefeated. But this post is to talk about something else I did on Oahu. I went to Hagen Dazs Iced Cream. We had 20 minutes of free time at Ala Moana, of which I spent 15 searching for a bathroom. When I finally arrived at our meeting place, the food court, I was exhausted (I'd also been up at that point for about 14 or so hours with only 2 hours of sleep the night before) but relieved. I glanced around the food court, and asked myself if I could only go to one place there, where would I go. The answer was obvious, the most amazing iced cream store I've ever been to. Seriously, the packaged Hagen Dazs iced cream we get in the stores here is awesome, but putting a scoop of that world class iced cream in a chocolate sprinkle cone and covering it in sprinkles is something else.

Debate

AKLASDKLJFSDKLFGJKSDKGJKJSDFJKDSJKLF Yeah, I know its been like, almost 2 months since my last post. Sorry. Haven't seen a lot of new movies, not a lot's been going on in my art world and school's been going strong.
I have been doing debate though. I had my first tournament on Friday and won in my category, novice Lincoln-Douglas. Tomorrow I'm heading out at 4 am to go to another one on Oahu, but its amazingly fun.

Tale of Kaua'i Part 2.

Day 3: We headed up north towards Hanalei and stopped at the Kilauea lighthouse. It was an awesome place, and it was incredible to see how many birds there were. I had heard it was a good place to look at birds, but I didn't realize they were the main attraction, but there were hundreds of them all around. There wasn't much you could do in the lighthouse proper, but the sights outside it were fascination, and the rugged peninsula felt more like the pacific northwest than Hawaii. Then we proceeded down through Hanalei and down to the edge of the Na Pali Coast. On the way we stopped at the massive wet and dry caves, both of which were fascinating. My grandfather was adamant about hiking some of the famous Kalalau trail, but we weren't exactly prepared for the hike and didn't have time or equipment, but we were able to see some nice views. Then we took a dip at the nearby beach and headed back to Hanalei for shave ice. We had already sampled some of the massive selection of flavors at Waimea's Jo Jos clubhouse the day before, but found that although it had a smaller array of flavors, Shave Ice Paradise had finer, smoother ice. On the way back to our condo we had the best meal of our trip at Scotty's Beachside BBQ. The ribs were incredibly tender and the sauce was delicious.

Day 4: Even though we were pressed for time as we had a flight to catch, the final day of our trip featured perhaps the most rewarding adventure of the trip. After a disappointing stop at the Spouting Horn blowhole (which wasn't spouting much that day, but made an interesting sound) we went to our condo's nearby beach before checking out and then proceeded to the tall, grand Wailua falls. Our guidebook had stated that we could swim in the pool beneath the falls, but I was dismayed to find that there was no apparent trail down from the lookout. However, our every handy guidebook showed us where to look, and we had a blast on the incredibly steep trail down to the falls. The trail was so steep that there was a ropes system set up so that you could lower yourself down and pull yourself up the trail, which was a lot of fun. Once at the falls, we had the incredible experience of swimming across the pool and standing on the ledge below them. Standing behind the thundering wall of water as it plummeted almost 200 feet was incredible. The chilly spray from the falls was exhilarating, and the sheer power of them as they plunged into the water was inspiring. We made sure not to get hit by the gargantuan payload of water, and then made our way back up the ropes and up to the lookout.

A tale of Kaua'i, Part 1

Day 1: even most inter-island flights have a layover in Honolulu, so we stopped there and I got to ride the escalators (yeah, I obviously haven't spent much time in the city). Then we hopped on over to Lihue, where we had lunch, saw some of the island's ubiquitous wild chickens, and headed down to our far too nice condo in Po'ipu. From there we got our towels and backtracked to Kipu falls, an awesome place. A 20 foot high waterfall empties into a deep pool thats safe for jumping into, and a rope swing on a nearby banyan makes the plunge even more fun.

Day 2: We headed up to the Waimea Canyon/Koke'e area, where we marveled at the canyon but were much more stunned by the awesome lookout over Kalalau valley. The lookout at the very end of the road offers an amazing view, where you can walk right up to the edge of the 2,000 foot valley walls. We also went to the condo pool (nobody under 16 in the hot tub, *grumblegrumble*) which had a small but fun waterslide.

I was on Kauai yesterday.

For a Summer trip I spent 4 days on Kaui, one of my neighbor islands. It was a really amazing experience and I'll say more about it soon, and hopefully post some pictures.

The Blog Lives!

I haven't posted in a while, and I'm sorry. There will be some new posts coming up soon, but let me just give you an update on what's been going on. 

I just watched Brazil. I would give you some thoughts, but I still haven't figured it out.

The Shak Budisen movie is at a standstill, but I'm determined to finish it and not make it yet another unfinished project. 

I have learned a bunch of photoshop skills. 

I am attending a film/television workshop thingy this Saturday, and will post about it.

Thats all. 

It Sorta Occurred To Me

I'm on break right now, and when I'm on break, I don't have to get up. But even when I get out of bed my mind doesn't really wake up. I don't really think I've been awake all day today.

Tennis & 1000 Hits

I've started doing tennis, and it takes up a lot of my time. So I'm gonna be posting even less than usual now that tennis is going on.

In other stuff, I just looked down at the hit counter, and the blog has finally passed 1000 hits. Thanks to everyone who came and visited :D

New Theme

Well, I changed the blog title to make it less cumbersome and I changed the theme. I may mess with the colors later. Thats all. (lame post)

1 Year of Blog

Yep. Its been a whole year since I started this blog, with my first post being "I had mac and cheese for lunch" ah, what auspicious beginnings. It started out as a daily blog with a lot of style and opinion and a little substance, and has evolved into a review and production blog that updates a lot less often, but with better quality posts. I think things have slowed down a bit more than I wanted them too, and I'm going to try to pick up the pace a bit in the blogs second year. I think there were a lot of bad posts last year, and a lot of good posts. Some stuff was misguided, some was correct. I'm hoping to perfect my posting style, spelling and grammar, and film critique for next year. Heres what you can look forward to in year two

• A review of the complete Powerpuff Girls DVD set

• Another really late review, this time of  Kung Fu Panda which could be the last redemption for Dreamworks (and possibly the last time I use the Dreamworks label in this blog, I don't even know why they get their own label)

•The Shak Budisen Movie and more production news- the movie is currently still set for release this Summer, I just have to finish it, which I will do eventually. I've done some new animation which I need to score.

• Lots more reviews of movies I will be seeing.

• More random crap to keep the blog active.

• Me being pompous when I get 1000 hits.

• Yet another new name for the blog. I'm thinking of simplifying it to: "Stuff I'm Making and Watching"

• The premier of my new show

• Possibly a music video 

• Possible move to a private server where this will become part of an expanded site

• Stuff

Ok, thats all I got, but hopefully that will keep things interesting and keep this blog going.

~Kieran

Two Follow Up Reviews

What? No Christmas post? Well, this is kind of a Christmas post since the two films I'm doing a follow-up on were brought to me courtesy of gift-giving relatives. Thanks folks :D. 

Anyways, the follow-ups I'm doing are on two of the top rated Summer movies: The Dark Knight and Wall-E. Second viewings made different impressions than before, with Wall-E's being considerably better. Anyways, lets get to the reviews.

The Dark Knight: Revised Score: 7.8

I'm pretty sure thats the same score I gave it last time, because, while my views of The Dark Knight's flaws has changed, the amount of flaws stays the same. TDK is definitely a very entertaining movie, but I find that a shorter cut could have improved the pacing and general flow of the movie. I think TDK's greatest weakness is that it feels like two separate 90 minute movies, with three climaxes, since the second half's climax is a double climax. TDK is full of great scenes, but they feel somewhat out of order; it seems as if the development of the multiple plot lines impedes the flow of the movie, since the film is so overloaded that the plot lines consistently interrupt each other. While I have no problems with an over the top, overloaded film, I do have a problem with the fact that the overload actually results in a decrease in intensity. This is TDK's  greatest problem, and it greatly impeded my enjoyment of the film.

TDK's greatest strength, and a lot of its appeal comes from the amount of risks it takes. It deals even casualties to both sides, and actually kills off one of the key protagonists. Must like its titular hero, TDK does things that other movies wouldn't do, and that gives it strength.

Although the pacing and the sense of flow aren't very good, all of the independent scenes are excellent, they are well produced, and quite entertaining. Unfortunately, this whole doesn't make a sum as big as its parts make it to be, but it is still entertaining and technically well made.

Wall-E: Revised Score: 9.3

I was right about this one. I enjoyed it far more this time around. Like with my first time watching TDK, Wall-E's pacing caught me off guard since I didn't know the run time. Since most current P.I.X.A.R films clock in at about two hours, I expected Wall-E to be much longer and heavier and was disappointed in that regard. However, evaluating it as what it is, Wall-E packs lots of depth, laughter, fun and emotion into 90 minutes, and I predict it will grow on me even more as I continue to watch it. It's very easy to watch but also very rewarding, so I think I'll be popping this one in for years to come.

Inflation Hits McDonalds...Sort of

So I went to McDonalds on thursday and was dismayed to find that the double cheeseburger had migrated from the Dollar Menu to the Sandwitch section. However, to my relief,  in its place on the dollar menu was a new sandwich called the McDouble. I asked the cashier what the difference was between the McDouble and the double cheeseburger, and she said that the McDouble had one slice of cheese while the double cheeseburger had two. The price difference was nineteen cents. Wow. Poor Ronald McDonald really had to tighten his belt during these tough economic times. He deprived dollar menu goers of 1 whole slice of american pasteurized, processed cheese food in order to save 19 cents. Of course, I wasn't about to pay extra, so I got the McDouble and of course, it was almost exactly the same. Now I'm not going to diss McDonalds for being cheap, but I'm wondering if there is anyone out there who is still buying the double cheeseburger in order to get that extra slice of cheese. I can accept that McDonalds wants to save some McMoney, but its strange to me that anyone would buy the double cheeseburger.

What the point of this post is, I don't know, it sounded much better in my head. I'm kind of out of the blog zone, as you can see by my pitiful amount of November posts, so I need to get my skillz back. But heres a post for December, and now that I'm on break 'yalls can expect summor.

The Air CN Shows in Widescreen Petition

Oh, and be sure to grab the Chowder vol 1 DVD! It has the first five produced half-hours on it (10 stories total), each presented in their original wide-screen format. You'll see more picture than was shown on broadcast, plus an animatic for Chowder's Girlfirend.

That's from C.H Greenblatts blog. according to this, Chowder was originally made in widescreen. However, I have yet to see a single episode in widescreen, and the iTunes episodes are in pan and scan as well. This makes me angry at CN and it makes me wonder if there are other shows that are being made in widescreen and aired in fullscreen.

So, post a comment and I'll add your name to the petition to get chowder and possibly other shows like it shown on CN in their original state

signatures

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James Sutton

Wow

The amount of posts on this blog has really declined. October had the second fewest posts this year. Part of it has to do with me being back in school, meaning I'm lazy, and part of it has to do with me spending more time on forums and less time on blogger. Whatever. The Shak Budisen Movie may have to be delayed, but I'm still working on it.

I have to eat my words

In fact, my two new reviews aren't up. Go figure. I was going to write them when I came back from the beach but I stepped on a sea urchin, so I ended up doing my homework and watching the grim adventures of billy and mandy. That's not so bad, but I will get those reviews up eventually.

Coming Tomorrow

I'll have two new reviews up: a belated review of Iron Man, and a review of Underfist, a new cartoon movie that will use a new rating scale specifically designed for this type of movie. This stuff will be posted tomorrow, but I wanted to post something today.

My deviantArt

With all my involvement online as far as cartoons go, I decided to get a deviantArt . Its not much now, but its something, and I'm workin' on it. 

Also, (just to make this a less pathetic post) I revamped the look of this blog a little. I basically just switched a couple of colors, but whatever.