Blue Canary in the Outlet By the Lightswitch

Hello there! I'm alive! Senior year is one of those things that just seem to speed by and take all of your time. That isn't much of an excuse, but again I've been living my life.

I turned 18 on April 15th, and got to thinking about what that actually means. It doesn't mean much fun things, but here's a list if you're keeping track:

• Register To Vote (check)
• Sign up for Selective Service (check)
• Buy a Lottery Ticket (check, and no it didn't win :P)
• Sign for medical/legal stuff (check, unfortunately)
• Drive past 11 (which honestly I'm rarely awake past 11 so....)

I'm sure there are other things (before you say tobacco and strip clubs, just stop) but that's what I made the list of. So family came over (it was weird not having my grandmother there, but I have a feeling she was... I'm not into that whole supernatural stuff, but I'm aware it exists) and we had cake and spaghetti and went our merry way. 

April 16th brought the They Might Be Giants Concert with Clay and my Aunt Marie. Well, Aunt Marie drove us there, but Clay had wanted me to come since they announced the concert. TMBG is a band that has been both quite largely followed and quite obscure. They've been around since the late 80s/early 90s and have a rather unique, quirky alternative sound I love. It was "an evening with" so they were their own opener. All in all, it was a great concert and they played for nearly 2 hours. Many thanks to both Clay and Aunt Marie for making that happen.

April 18th brought High School Musical. I can't say too much really (partially because I was partially deaf that day, and the other because I'm a cynic) except there were two main reasons I was there: Dan Doyle (The Actuary Gigabass), and Becca. I wanted to support my friends (mainly those two) and so I did. 

April 23rd brought a mock senate (which was fantastic!) and the Trib Total Media Dinner Thingy. I was named one of Trib Total Media's Top 50 Outstanding Young Citizens for the South and West Region. I don't talk about these sorts of things much, but this is an exception. Those who were selected were invited to a (really fancy) banquet out past the Airport. It is extremely rare that I feel REALLY out of place at social functions. I was surrounded by AAA and AAAA schools, and the tops of those schools, so it was intimidating and strange to say the least. They stuck us in the back corner of the room (and I think that's a good thing, because we were with a family from Chartiers-Valley who spent the whole night feeling like the riff-raff) and gave a lovely dinner that due to my illness I couldn't really taste. All in all, it was a pretty okay night, and I have a neat little certificate to go with it.

April 24th brought the Senior Project. As a graduation requirement, students in our district are required to complete a project detailing their profession of choice. It involves completing research on the career, doing a job shadow, and it culminates in a presentation and interview on a selected day. That day was the 24th, and my panel consisted of an elementary teacher I didn't know, my kindergarten teacher (yep, he got to start and end my high school career), and one of the high school computer teachers (I wrote a story about his sports marketing class for The Cougar Times). I passed, I think, but the kicker was I had lost my voice. I have been sick effectively for the past week (it's finally been diagnosed as a sinus infection and is being treated) and lost my voice entirely the day of the presentation. So I was lucky enough to whisper the entirety of my presentation to my panel....

This coming Tuesday I am going to be on a student panel about education at (WYEP-owned) WESA. As I said, we'll be talking education: the past, the present, and the future. They will record our little panel and then broadcast it at a later date (you better believe I'll be posting a link when I get it!). The panel itself will start at 7PM, and if you'd like to join us just register here: http://wesa.fm/post/905-wesa-present-life-learning-forum-april-28.

Upcoming events include: the last Court of Honor for troop 831 (ever) is tomorrow, the doom and gloom church meeting is tomorrow, and no doubt fun stuff awaits us next week. 

Until next time, I'll see you on the radio 

(I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO SAY THAT!!!)

This Has Been Alexander Popichak Speaking For The Carlynton Marching Band

Yesterday was the end of an era for me, it was Senior Night at Carlynton and with that, my last football game with the band.

Three years ago I signed up to be the announcer of the band. Since then, I've attended football games home and away, and more band festivals then I knew existed. It was a blast, honestly. What started as just something to do became a part of my life, and the gaining of a family I never expected. It was because of this that I was able to do three years of homecoming court bios, senior nights, a year of soccer, and emceeing three band festivals.

Last night I was given a gift by my section member (the section of the sectionless) Abbie (best friend to my girlfriend and all around amazing band manager) an awesome gift - a decorated hatbox for my crazy marching band helmet as well as a bag of Three Musketeers.

I again read (this time half) of senior night -  for my seniors, the class of 2015. Then it was my turn to have my name and biography read as I walked down the field. It was the first time I had ever walked down the middle of the field that I can remember, and I was met at the end by Mr. Obidowski, Mr. Loughren, and Mr. McAdoo. It was surreal to say the least. The band cheered, and then I was back to whatever it was I was doing. Back to the student section for one last time to cheer on one last Carlynton Loss.

We lost, but we cheered anyway. I hung by the band one last time with the people I had grown to appreciate, the people that had taken me in as their own.

I wrote two weeks ago about living in the moment, and about taking it in. I did, and it was fantastic. Nothing was different except the beginning and the end. I took along with me to the box Sara and Cassie. They had never been there, and I offered to any senior the chance to go. So I did my thing, and I added one thing to the end of my regular script:

"Thank you for supporting music in our schools, Thank you Mr. Obidowski and the entire Carlynton Marching Band for an amazing past three years as your announcer. This has been Alexander Popichak speaking for the Carlynton Golden Cougar Marching Band. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO COUGARS!"

And that was it. They played Seven Nations' Army in the stands one last time, I must note, but that was the end of my band announcing (career?). Clay, Sara, Cassie, and I went to Kings and ran into a waitress that we had the night prior, and it was weird and surreal and wonderful.

Keep The Earth Below My Feet

So It's Summer. With summer comes the changing of the guard - from the class of 2014 to the class of 2015. Notice the title of the site? Yeah, that means us.

It is surreal to think that the class of 2014 is graduating. They were always 'that grade ahead of us' that I never liked on the whole. Over the course of the past few years, I was fortunate enough to meet a large portion of the class, and am glad to call a few of them my friends. Nevertheless, time marches on.

I have been within and without since finals, and that is mainly because of the combination of finals cramming and getting these approvals for the Eagle Project. After nearly 6 months and over a dozen meetings with the Principal/Assistant Principal, the first, preliminary paperwork is approved by them. I can't talk much more than that yet, which is kind of frustrating because I like being relatively transparent here, but I still have approvals to go before anything moves forward. Such Paperwork. Many Unwow.

Over the course of the first week of summer (7 days) I was back up at the high school three times. The first was graduation, because it was indoors (read: auditorium, and I work auditorium events). When I got there, however, they informed me that it was outsourced, the boards were moved, and there was no place for me to go. So I snuck into the LGI control room, turned off all the lights and watched from there. It seems like a lot of issues in my everyday life could be fixed with simple communication. Oh well, such is life.

On Friday, two days after getting out of school, a few friends and I went mini-golfing, and then harassed Greg at his place of work, Dairy Queen. It felt a lot like one of those scenes in a movie, you know the ones, where you're playing music, laughing, and having a good time. The music of the night was everything from whatever the heck the 'Church Clap' is to Mumford and Sons' "Below My Feet". I've learned to really like that song. Not exactly sure why, but it (followed by the Monster Mash) provided the soundtrack to our adventure.

Here's to Summer, and here's to getting everything done and SENIOR YEAR.

“The best things in life aren't things.” - Art Buchwald

On Opening Night - 6 December 2013

Interesting words, and when you consider that you work on a production for months in front of an empty auditorium, it's quite strange to have it suddenly filled with people. To hear people laugh when you say the most ridiculous lines ("General Goethals was very pleased, he says the canal is just the right size! ... Dear me, this'll be a shock to the general!?") is a strange experience.

I've never had a speaking role in any production, so I've been more than able to slip into the background and ignore it all, but it's so different to be a leader with it.

Take, for example, at the beginning of the second act. I get all up in Clay Bodnar (in this production he's Johnathan Brewster). I've known him for years, and have worked with him on so many projects, which should make it easy for us to fight on stage. But it is so hard with his ridiculous makeup and my ridiculous lines and glued on mustache! I sort of understand now how hard it must be for the people on Saturday Night Live to not break character... At the same time, I wouldn't trade it for the world.

This is such a great cast to be a part of, and come time for our bows at the end of the production when we all stand together, hand in hand before whoever shows up, we truly are a family; and truly a great group of friends. I'm writing this to remind myself in the future what it felt like - it was strange, but so much fun.

Thanks to everyone that came last night, to everyone who will be there in roughly four hours for show two, and everyone that will be there tomorrow. And a huge thanks goes to everyone that has helped put this together from Ms. Longo (director) to Al (sound guy) to everyone who has put up with my bugle insanity and especially to my Brewster family:

Cast of Arsenic and Old Lace

How Can You Dream In The Doorway Without Ever Going In?

First I'm going to acknowledge that this is my 200th post since I started the blog nearly 4 years ago.

This week was an interesting one. Tuesday brought with it auditions for this year's Carlynton Winter Play, Arsenic and Old Lace. It's this dark-ish comedy about two aunts who live together with their insane nephew who thinks that he is Teddy Roosevelt, and basically they take boarders in and kill them. When their 'normal' nephew Mortimer discovers this, well, you'll have to come in December to see it live.

Auditions are always the most nerve-wracking part of a production if only for the reason of the big unknown - you don't know how it will go, and your mission is to sell to the panel your acting skills. If they like you, they call you back. And they called me back. 

Callbacks were fun, and I realized that our entire on-air talent with the morning announcements (Aidan, Clay, and I) were all called back, and I knew pretty much the entire callback crew, so that made things fun. They had me try out the Teddy character, and asked me to try an officer character (again, you need to see this thing) which I attempted a Brooklyn/New Jersey accent on.

I said one sentence and the auditorium started cracking up. It wasn't the line, it was the ridiculous accent (which if you've seen BBC 2 1/2, you can picture an accent of that ridiculous scale.... downright overdone and goofy)

They had me try out also for all-too-serious-yet-semi-sarcastic Mortimer character, a role that was sort of hard to pull off after throwing two ridiculous characters out on stage... but whatever. After that we were left to wait.

Thursday brought the announcements that we were asked to record for Open House that night. We never record, or pre-record our announcements. No delays, no nothing, always live, which made this a bit, um, stressful (I know it sounds ridiculous, but I'm telling the truth!). It was a trainwreck. So we had to come in and re-record everything on the VHS tape during 6th period, my lunch.

I was first into the studio after our adviser. I told her, that that was my lunch period and she responded "oh, it'll just take like four minutes."

It took a total of five takes (four that period) to get the good copy. And since we were using a VCR and VHS tapes, we had to start over every time something went wrong. Our visual producer put it this way:

@AlexPopichak MOST STRESSFUL THIRTY MINUTES EVER
— Natalie Thomas (@NatCat301) September 20, 2013

So yeah, we got it done, and the broadcast that night was flawless; too bad I didn't get to eat my lunch that period... Oh well.

That night brought open house, which I announced the changing of classes and directed parents, and that night I got the email to check the cast list.

And I got cast as the insane Teddy Brewster. So yeah, this is going be fun considering my character's brothers are the normal Mortimer Brewster (portrayed by my WCHS cohort Aidan Kalimon) and the evil Boris Karloff-esque character Jonathan Brewster (portrayed by... wait for it... my other WCHS on-air cohort Clay Bodnar). This is going to be something else.

And Friday brought with it another Carlynton Football win, this time 42-0 over Serra Catholic. Over half of the cast of the play was with me in the student section, so that was cool....

I hope that was long enough. Thanks for reading, and here's to 200 posts! *raises juicebox*

Looking Back At Sunsets On The East Side / We Lost Track Of The Time

So I apologize for not posting last night, but the reasoning will come later.

So this week was about accomplishing things and catching up. I wrapped reading "Fences" by August Wilson, and earlier wrapped reading "Manhunt: the 12 day search for Lincoln's killer", and I plan on writing reviews a bit later. I also was granted access and am now the head designer/web developer for the Carlynton Marching Band. So that's sort of exciting.

I also got to catch up with an old friend of mine, as well as Dave (of Dave 'n Clay show concept fame on here I guess). We took on the world through wooded trails, and Dave screaming "YOLO" for no particular reason.

It was nice to catch up. And anyone that's read Paper Towns by Jayscribble can appreciate this when I say she pulled a Margo and called me about an hour ahead of time, and appeared at my doorstep for an adventure the nature of which neither of us exactly knew.

And I like that. Spontaneity. Nevertheless, we adventured around and talked about where we're going and what we're doing. And it was then that I realized how far I've come, and actually how 'old' we are.

In my mind at least, I was back in eight grade. It was when we got to talking that I realized that I'm now a Junior. It's crazy.

So this Friday (the day I SHOULD have posted, yeah, yesterday) I got another one of those Margo-esque calls but this time it was from Clay. Today when I post this is his birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY!), and last night we went on a bowling adventure in an underground lane in Crafton. But first we went to the dollar store in the same plaza.

Dollar stores are curious places, full of deals and the strong smell of plastic. You know the plastic I'm talking about - not the lovelyness of new car, but the stuff that makes you wonder how the nice people working the registers don't get asphyxiated on their shift.

We had no purpose there except to kill time, and it's sort of dangerous to let four teenagers loose in a dollar store. And they had everything there from "LOOKS REAL!" gag ketchup to "Jihad Joe: the novel" to Pokemon tattoos... and 'Hater Shades'.

At least I think that's what they're called. That or shutter shades or something. They were given the dollar store generic name of "party shades" and 3/4 of us got them and I bowled about 1/6 of the time with them on. Now I may have been hallucinating, but I think they helped me line up the shot better. Nevertheless, I still lost.

But ultimately that didn't matter. We were in a half-decent yet deserted bowling alley underneath a grocery store in a shopping plaza I've been to once, having the time of our lives. And yeah, the pizza wasn't that great, but these are definitely the things I will remember about my summers: getting calls randomly from friends and the adventures that follow.

We're so Into You Incredibly We'd Love to See You Terribly

So yeah, I stalled for two days extra. I'm sorry, but the last week has been absolutely insane.... To make up for it, I'll write something pretty long, pretty uplifting, and pretty sad. Maybe. Wish me luck on this one.

There was not a day this past week when I was just "home": I was usually up at the high school for one thing or another, and there was one night where I was at school then someplace else.

I've been working on an English project that answers the question: What if Ralph and Jack from Lord of the Flies were on a talk show? We answer by bringing you a very 70's cheezy talk show entitled (and long time readers will appreciate this one) The Clay Bodnar Variety Hour. All told, I've probably spent about 10 hours getting the space, filming, and editing - goodness the editing.

If there's something I hate about projects in general, it's editing things. I tend to have an inner need to perfection-edit, which is a process where I spend obscene amounts of time reading something I've done, hating and editing it like crazy. When I see the 'finished product', I usually hate it because it isn't finished or has some tiny editing error in it or whatever. Just a rant.

I've been going back and forth about what to write about, but I didn't want to get into some doom and gloom mode since two of my favourite things stopped existing.

So roughly a year ago, I wrote about a dude that wrote a column named Peter McKay. I liked his Saturday columns, and I kind of thought that I could try and learn his writing style. Then about a week ago I read this in the paper:

So yeah. This explained to me two things: 1) THERE ARE 11 YEARS OF COLUMNS I HAVENT READ and 2) It's gone. His column is gone. The other thing that died was the whole New York trip - due to lack of interest. Blah. So in that sense it was a bad week.

However, there were many things that went pretty well. WPXI came to spotlight our upcoming musical, 9 to 5. Yesterday was spent at the Carnegie Arts and History Museum, which I will say this much about: Remember the whole Devil in the White City thing? Yeah, there were artifacts from that same worlds fair. (And I would've included pictures too! Turns out that taking pictures wasn't allowed there though).

After the expedition to the Arts and History museum, I descended into the depths of it, and into the Library adjacent to it via the magic tunnel. My mission was to check out the Pennsylvania room that I had heard of in a Rick Sebak special... and I think I've found a new place to adventure to. 

Hopefully a more coherent blog next time...

Schools Out, Forever (or at least next week)

(It's a play on song lyrics... If you haven't heard the song, then I don' know what to tell you)
So yeah, it's winter break. I think I'm going to blog about a few things, but I'll name them as subheadings: It's the End of The World As We Know it (and I Feel Fine), and OMG It's Snowing In Carnegie.

It's The End Of The World As We Know it (And I Feel Fine)
I have some bad news for you conspiracy theorists: I procrastinated on my Friday blog post, and we're all alive.

But Friday marked the last day we had before this lovely little break, as well as the annual CHS Variety Show. I was informed the day before that the WCHS Morning Crew (Consisting of Me, Clay Bodnar of JSVH fame, and Aidan K of AK Productions Fame) were to host the variety show. Now, I had emceed events before, notably the Talent show of like 2009 or something but my counterparts had only done the AM announcements with me.

It's strange to be on this end of the spectrum when a year back I ran lights for the same event. I got the call from the people running the lights that it was time to go, and instead of hitting the button for a spot, I led Aidan and Clay into darkness with nothing but a spotlight glaring upon us. For me, it was very strange.

We then talked about the end of the world as the opening, doing a custom-tailored version of REM's "It's the End of the World as We Know it (And I Feel Fine)" that we had learned a mere 9 minutes before curtain. It was complete with jumbled lyrics and an ancient Mayan dance, which consisted of Aidan doing the "start the lawnmower" and sprinkler.

Somehow, we managed to host the show with limited injury. We almost lost a Kozy cutout, and were nearly booed for our jokes, but hey, so are the pros! There were a few tech and performance snafus, but I think we managed well enough on our end.

I was asked when I went up to my grandparents house this weekend if our grades were checked, or if we needed to be in scholars or honors classes to do the announcements. Quite plainly, no. We're a group of volunteers that just want to do this for the heck of it. We get no bonus points, magic pats on the back, and I don't think we need it. Our announcements crew (not the tech crew... that is another story entirely) is a dysfunctional family that gets stuff done in a wacky way.

OMG It's Snowing In Carnegie
(Kudos to the CHS band for inspiring the title)
So there were two trends inspiring a lot of the tweets among local teens, or at least the people that I follow on twitter. The first was the end of the world, and the second is that it's snowing.

What a shocker that the first day of winter (northern hemisphere) contains snow. Yet the local news, and twitterers alike took to their proverbial pulpits preaching that it had indeed snowed.

On a final note, these events inspired this gem of a tweet from the great Lana Meyer responding to the great Marin Exler:

No school means hopefully more time to blog. Look for something on Boxing day and MAYBE on Friday for once. 

Happy Western Christmas, Chanukah, Boxing Day, Festivus, and New Years everyone!

Football, Friday Nights, and WCHS

I don't think Fridays this fall will be the best time to blog. I apologize in advance for that, but please bear with me. I am announcing this year for the Carlynton Marching Band during all of their halftime shows and band festivals. So why not go there?

So anyway, this Friday was my first announcing gig with the band. It was an away game at Fort Cherry (Before you ask, we lost 31-21, but it was a FANTASTIC game!).

It's kind of weird being at an away game for the first time, and basically being invited into the press box to talk into a mic that plays throughout this entire stadium that, did I mention, is being listened to by about 300 people at their home field you don't know, and your alma mater's side containing your principal? Also, you are like the start gun to the halftime show...

Yeah, I overanalyze things, but at the same time, this is all going through my mind as I stand up to the microphone.

I have this amazing ability to do something and just not think about it. That is exactly what I did Friday night. I read off my infosheet and didn't think twice about it. I seem to snap into this mode when a microphone is live where I read everything smoothly and NEVER REMEMBER IT. Oh well...

So completely switching gears, we also start WCHS's new season tomorrow... and I'm proud to announce that we have an amazing crew including the likes of my brother on sound, internet-footprintless Greg on the video board, the great Clay Bodnar, and I am anchoring alongside Aidan from AK Productions.

SO we attempted a broadcasting test Friday to make sure all systems were go. Unfortunately they weren't. We couldn't get the cameras working, the broadcaster was on the fritz and we didn't have a host mic.

I spent my fourth period study hall working on that lab. I had to work with the breaker boxes, this stupid VHS player, and then everything was hunky-dorey. Whatever.

So anyway, we are set to go tomorrow during homeroom bringing you the latest on Carlynton sports, news, and when the Library will be open.

I hope to write Thursday... As Friday we'll be at Home Versus the Clairton Bears.

Happy Labor Day everyone.

Super Special Bonus Blog Post Fun Time!

Do I ever use my own pics?
SOURCE: OrthodoxCarnegie.org

So yesterday I was texting my sister (No, not my real sister, but you get the idea... [maybe this is what Jay Scribble means by "Secret Sister" and "Secret Brother"]) and she invited me to church. Granted, I can go to church down the hill anytime I want, but I got invited, so I decided to come...

So this morning I woke up and walked down the hill, over a block or so, down the hill some more, and eventually made my way to Mansfield Boulevard where the church is. I walked into the church, greeted the greeters (Its a bizarre feeling to be formally 'greeted') and then got the reader(My not-real sister's father)'s permission as well as the priest's permission to serve (I'm an alter server, not a priest, or deacon, or bishop, or anything else).

It has been a long time since I have served solo with another priest; and it was, to say the least, interesting. It isn't, at least in my eyes, my "home" parish. That title goes to Slickville, and will forever be Slickville. But it was nice to be able to experience church through the customs of my geographic home parish.

On a side note, the priest was absolutely amazed I walked the five or so blocks to church.
"If your dad and brother are in Slickville, and your mom is in Butler, how did you get here?"
"Um, I walked"
"Woah. Oh, thanks for coming"

Anyway, I stayed for the Parastas, and then attended Sunday for the first time in about seven or eight years. Again, it was a tad taboo for me to go into a church basement, sit with people my age, and discuss what had just happened upstairs. I won't go into too much detail (Feel free to ask, I just am not trying to be a blogevangelist), but it was bizarre to me, or at least foreign. Slickville has an average age of about 75, making my brother and I the youngest "members" of the church (legally and canonically, we can't be members, but again, I am not going to go into detail). Our Sunday School was my mother brother and I talking in the basement of the church about the miracles of Christ, as well as what the parts of the liturgy meant, et cetera. It was very much the same in the content respect, only it wasn't two small children and their mother talking one-on-one.

We later went next door to the hall, where I talked for a while with people I hadn't seen in a while, greeted other people, and then my sister's mother gave the two of us a ride to musical practice.

I am not at liberty to discuss the specifics of the show (See it at Carlynton live April 19-22nd) but basically, we took pictures, sang a little, attempted to dance (Or rather, I attempted to dance whilst the people around me actually danced), and then went home.

Yay, this is something I actually own!

"Going home" was staying at my house for about an hour, and then descending the hill I already had walked this morning to the basement of another church for a boy scout meeting. We discussed upcoming events, and then had some team-building stuff that we went over as well as chain of command.

According to my friend, the girl scouts are a classroom-oriented organization. You are sorted by age group and have one year or so to accomplish a rank. The boy scouts is quite the opposite. You gain a rank by earning it with your own initiative (You can be in the program for six or seven years and be a tenderfoot... we don't encourage it, but you can do it). We are very much boy-led, and its kind of amazing how it all is brought together.

I finished my Sunday by texting my sister and the before-mentioned friend and coming up with a blog post idea. I decided I was going to talk about my Sunday. I texted my sister a name, and that was "Super Special Bonus Blog Post Fun Time!" And she liked it.

PS: Why is Blogger telling me Slickville is not a word... or texting?

The English Language, WYEP, and School Boards

Again I feel the need to apologize for posting a day late.

So yesterday I took two tests. The first being an American Cultures test which is semi-irrelevant to this post, and the second being an English test. It was a reading/vocab quiz (WHY VOCAB‽‽‽) on the first act of Shakespeare's Masterpiece, Romeo and Juliet which he stole, but that's irrelevant to the point here. There is always an essay to these things; some way for the teacher to pick inside your head, and call your train of thought wrong, or right.

Anyway, he wrote up on the board something along the lines of "What type of literary devices did Shakespeare use to build suspense in the first act of Romeo & Juliet?" I immediately saw room for creativity (along the lines of my before-mentioned toaster story) in citing a bunch of different things, for I would make it my mission as blogger extraordinaire to somehow make literary devices half-exciting.

He then did the predictable move, and decided to come up with a "better" questions. Predictably, he switched it to something along the lines of "Explain how Shakespeare uses dramatic irony to create suspense in the first act of Romeo and Juliet."  This, of course ties into our study of irony which, may I add, we have been studying since the first week of school. I, needless to say, was quite sad, so in answer wrote this lovely simile about how Shakespeare's suspense kind of is like standing in a line at like Kennywood or some theme park to ride this crazy roller-coaster and seeing the loops and stuff beforehand, inevitably having to ride it, as you're already in line, and asking yourself "Why did I do this again?" and the rest of the story is the actual riding of this roller coaster, and the worst part in this tragedy is the fact that you know what's coming.

Today I was at WYEP for their "Teen Center" Now known as Re(imagine) media. I was working alongside yet another gentleman who I've come to know being named, of course, Alex. We were finalizing this news-esque story about the Occupy Pittsburgh movement.

Well, thanks to technology, we aren't done yet. However, we did get together with the rest of the WYEP crew to start work on this crazy "Battle-of-the-Bands"-esque thingy yet to be named. Bottom line, the idea is to take a bunch of local teen-created bands and have them judged and chiseled down to a top 5. These top 5 will perform live and be judged, who will chisel them further into a top 1. Look for more posts on this later... We are also talking about starting a website where we'll host videos, podcasts, and various other stuffs from the Re(image) media project. I will probably be working on this website project, but once again, details will come later.

So this past Thursday I had to fill in for the guy that usually films the School Board meetings. This was incredibly convenient since I needed to attend a school board meeting anyway for a requirement for a merit badge. In the meeting, they talked about various stuff, mainly Stage Curtains, fill in front of the Carnegie Elementary building, and then they got to my favourite part - The Open Forum.

Since the Public didn't want to talk about anything, the board discussed some headlines involving textbooks coming to the evil Apple devices. It was interesting how the board wasn't overly sure what this was about; but wanted to look into trying to do this anyway. I talked afterward with a board member about my thoughts on the topic, being the student that would be on the receiving end of this. I talked to him about how I preferred actual paper textbooks for certain applications, and how it'd be beneficial for history (1984 references) class to have paper textbooks, while technology would be beneficial for certain applications like science class models and things.

He was fascinated that A) I came up to him and B) my position on this. He pulled over like two or three board members (one being the Vice president, the other being the wife of a gentleman who owns a technology company). It just goes to show that if you know how to talk to people, you're opinion can be heard.

Speeches

STAT: This blog is fast approaching 3800 pageviews! Amazing! Thanks to everyone!

In English class over the past two days, we presented speeches about what we thought were important to us. I picked three rather cliched topics - My writings (This site, WYEP Stuff, newspaper fails), the outdoors (scouting, the summit, biking), and videography (eugh... you lost me).

I gave my (horrid) speech, and then proceeded to listen to my classmates' speeches. I learned a lot about the people whom I pass in the hallways everyday. Granted, this was a scholars class that had grown close due to the smallness of our class and our school, but still we learned of each other.

There were gamers, dancers, indie music (TALLY HALL) lovers, travelers, cheerleaders, basketball players, baseball players, card trick wizard/relgionesque dude, and there was even an actress/artist/figure skater. It occurred to me that the true meaning to high school is CERTAINLY not learning something academically, but to learn about the people and relationships and interactions with those around us. It is only when one walks 10,000 steps in one's shoes that one can begin to comprehend the complexities behind that individual (and WOW is that cliched).

Anyway, I learned things about my class that quite frankly surprised me. I was told once that you are a person who is either creative or intellectual. There is the very small few who are both. She told me that I was both, but I constantly question how creative I am (Considering I come up with ideas that have already been done) and exactly how smart I am (Umm, I still can't find theme in most written pieces... forget finding one in my own). Regardless of my personal situation, there are definitely people in my class who posses the gift of both. Take the actress/artist/figure skater for example. She is perhaps the best novel interpreter (finds crazy literary stuff I can only hope to catch on to) that I know behind, like, professional novelists (shoutout to JayScribble!) and people who read Greg's comics (No Andrew you CANT Read "Carrot"). She also can draw quite well.

The thing that I indirectly stated in my speech is the fact that I absolutely loathe English Class writing assignments. I am one of those bratty writers who want to be completely freeform. You tell me to write a third person story about a magic toaster or something, and I can do it. Tell me that I need four paragraphs, the toaster is unpersonified, and I must use at least seven vocabulary words, then you take the story and squash it.

Finally, never are we given prompts about alpacas or toasters or anything good. It all must have a tie in to what we are doing, use some mechanism of the mind control that education has been instilling into us (umm, when am I going to be given a list of completely impractical vocabulary words and need to work them into, say, a blog post?) and then it gets sent off to be judged by someone.

I digress. Bottom line, I have learned more from my fellow classmates about life and reality in the short 60 minutes of speechifying than I have doing proofs in Geometry, or finding a specific theme in a short story written hundreds of years before I was born.

Literature only becomes irrelevant when one tries to look at it from a modern perspective and try and find modern aspects to it. If you'll excuse me now I am going to memorize some literary terms revolving around literary techniques for a midterm test.

On Minecraft, and Musicals, and Daytime Television

First off, I decided to write a blog about Pop Culture. I am not 100% sure as to why, but here goes nothing.

I am not a fan of television anymore. I drew the line at NCIS never-ending reruns on USA network. I got fed up and went straight for the internet. Honestly, the internet is a television that you choose your own content (Youtube) and Channels (Also Youtube) and can interact with them. However, sometimes my parents think I am too involved with internet, and force me back into reality. Rule of thumb is that if its dark outside, I'm either on my computer, sleeping, or otherwise doing something of that nature. This leaves me to only be watching occasional daytime television.

Daytime television is really the shows that could never make it primetime, or have too involved a plot for the night dwellers. These shows are what we call "soap operas." These are the most pointless bits of professional production that I have come across so far. And there are MAGAZINES for this stuff! Not only do they assert their pointlessness after the noon news, they also have to invade the stands around where people check out with their bread and milk.

This is a Creeper ^ He says hi
(Source:thinkgeek.com)

Moving right along, one of the most happening thing on the internet and gaming world is something called "Minecraft."  Its this magical little game where one's objective is, well, whatever he/she wishes. I have taken a liking to mooching off of my friend Clay's computer and building this insanely huge railroad thingy (yeah, creative mode, I am just that awesome) that defies gravity and runs into itself and stuff. Otherwise, I don't care too much for building houses with the little blocks and whatnot. I don't particularly understand the fascination of it, but I will keep plugging along at Clay's house with the magical railroad.

I have debated at great lengths as to whether or not to actually get this game for myself. I don't have the time really.

Speaking of not having much time, I am about to audition for a musical. This brings up two things: my lack of dancing skills, and the return to a stage. I haven't been on a stage in front of a crowd performing for about three years. The second isn't much of an issue because I enjoy the stage for no apparent reason. Take for example anchoring the TV announcements when they needed a fill in on Thursday. I enjoyed it being alongside co-anchor DavidWov and Host Clay Bodnar. But back to the first issue. I am concerned that not being able to dance might play a factor in auditions. However, as my chorus director told me - You're a guy, they won't expect too much. Find a girl and have her help you.

Well, that presents a whole other problem with "finding a girl", but not one involving a musical.

Post-Blog: I believe that I have developed a style of writing here. I title a three-topic blog and add a picture of something semi-related and then write some semi-depressing note before a closing that looks semi-optimistic. You like?

That'sChurch is DoublePlusGood

Okay, so a while back in the news there was this hugely popular local blog called PittGirl. She got in the news and stuff after some scandal involving the mayor, and apparently started a new blog elsewhere.

Anyway, I was looking through the other nominees in CBS Pittsburgh's MVB Contest. Anyway, this "everything else" portion has some great bloggers. Under my blog (Yay for having a 2 in the name of the blog!) I see this "That's Church" blog. I click about, and it turns out this PittGirl person is the same person as That's Church. Upon further inspection, it turns out that she also watched MONK!

Bottom line, the fact that a high school freshman (yay first day of school!) can be in the same contest with PittGirl, who has a hugely ridiculous local following... just shows the power of the internet.

DoublePlusGood is an expression as used in George Orwell's 1984 to describe something that is better than good, or excellent. Its all a part of this philosophy involving the 'Party' and some other philosophical content I wish not to bore my readers about.

This poster (at left) is a digitized version of my friend Clay Bodnar's poster for 1984. The "Doublethink" wording is in the same font as street signs (Inspired by Cherry Street [details later]). And the three party slogans "war is peace..." is in one of my new favourite fonts called "Typewriter from Hell". I love the internet.

To Read about the MVB and some other stuff click here.

Tally Hall, and, well, TALLY HALL!

So back in May, my friend Greg tells me about this band called "Tally Hall". I liked a song of theirs, and decided to learn some more. Then he tells me that they are coming to Pittsburgh in August.

Fast-forward to August, and I finally decide that I am going to go with Greg and Clay to see this band. So, a week before we see them, I decide (learning from the John Green accident) to look them up ahead of time to see what they are all about. Their harmony and style is unique, and just, well, great.

Tally Hall as seen from my vantage point... via a phone

Fast-forward to Sunday the 20th. The day we finally go to Mr. Small's Funhouse (its a theatre, not a strip club) and see Tally Hall live and in person. This is a nice little church-turned-music-theatre in scenic Millvale. I decide to update my tumblr live from the place. Heck, we were in the front row!

What you must realize is that the 'front row' of Mr. Small's is right up against a wooden barrier about four feet from the stage, extending in between the megaspeakers. So, in other words, we were right up there near tally hall.

For a sample of some of their made-of-awesome music, click the grooveshark sampler at the bottom of this post. Afterward, they signed my tour shirt... all five of them! Plus BORA, their manager. all of them were REALLY nice, and Rob Cantor (Yellow Tie) asked if I was Canadian (I was wearing my Canadia Shirt)

Listen to some Tally Hall now:

& from the album Good & Evil (I just plain Like this one)



Welcome To Tally Hall (their kinda Theme Song)

I Can't Believe I Have Never Blogged About Canada!

So I decided to reblog some random blog post from here, just to generate traffic to this site, and to show what I do in my spare time. [For the record this is for my tumblr]

In order to decide what to reblog, I plugged the word "Canada" into my sidebar search thing-a-ma-jig. Amazingly, that word has never appeared in my blog before. I don't hate you Canadians, its just that you occasionally slip my mind! So, here goes nothing (really):

Canadian Please
So recently I discovered a Canadian vlogger through watching Elmify on Youtube religiously. Anyway, he posted a music video about how basically Canadians are awesome. You should really go check it out if you get a chance, as well as my other Favourites on Youtube.

We're Going to Canada (in 2016)!!!
This past year, I talked to my friends about going to Canada just as a trip when we were all 19. The plan was to go to Toronto, and have fun in Canada. The only two issues came up with transportation. The first is a small expense called a Passport and the other being a vessel to hold eight people. So basically, a school bus, or maybe just two cars. Another idea was a subway boring straight to Toronto. How we'll surface? Heck if I know.

TRANSITION!

Finally, I am working on some new projects... but those won't be out for a while. I am going to post next about maybe Elmify, Meekakitty, Vlogbrothers, or someone else. Wanna suggest something? Comment or email me at the link under "contact webmaster" or whatever I put at the bottom.

Two Thousand Bloody Views and LapsingReality(CC)

So apparently [as far as all time views go] this website is more popular than my built-from-scratch troop site. Unfortunately, I've been working on analytics with this longer than the troop site. ENOUGH NERD TALKING!

So recently I have been focusing on television and off-the-internet projects (such as Bulletin Board Events) instead of my regular YouTube videos. However, the past two weeks have been quite the opposite.

On Saturday, my friend Clay (BBC Project, JSVH, Total Randomness) decided we should go up to the park. As always, I brought my HD camcorder. That is when the idea for LapsingReality came to us. We decided to take everyday things and speed them up.  [See Bottom Of This Post]

Finally, I filmed a collab video on August 4th. Due to things near my control, I am not posting that yet. Also in the works is a Total Randomness 4. Wow, four already.
 

Lapsing Reality:Park

#TheBabyIsMakingOctopusSounds and A Little Bit Of OCD

Okay, first off, I would like to say this is post 94. For post 100 (If I can last that long) I will probably make a vlog. It will be unsuccessful, but it will be here nevertheless. It is kind of a long-running thing with me. First the journalism, then websites, then videos, and now into this mode of not really caring where things go anymore.

So, I attended my first "End Of The Year" Party. It basically was this: going to a friends house, swimming, listening to music, beating each other with plastic things, and then watching a terrible old movie. Honestly, what better do we have to do on a Thursday in June? This party was attended by all of my creative friends (DavidWov, Mistaecco, Clay!), (Minus Youtube's MrXigbar22) and we talked about a little bit of everything. That is where the "#TheBabyIsMakingOctopusSounds" tag came from. It was really a combination of two ideas: hashtagging, and naming folders.

On an almost unrelated note, I have been scrolling the YouTubes Lately with the obsessive VlogBrothering thing and I have also discovered "Elmify". She is a person from a place that is mildly entertaining. She rants about stuff in a way that is slightly boring yet entertaining at the same time. Well, I will be back eventually.
Yours,
Alex.
PS: I shouldn't sign blog posts.

Post EIGHTY and Some Randomness

Well, first off, I would like to acknowledge that Marie Popichak (aunt that I rarely talk about) decided to write about my John Green obsession, and that this is post EIGHTY since I started. You can read her post: Just Click Here. I rarely acknowledge that other websites exist, except mine (of course, does a painter acknowledge other works?), but hers is truly something to check out. Never have I seen such a website that had just about as much randomness on it as I do here, so check it out.

Ok, I promised randomness. I want to add a few things to two posts ago (the post before last): it turns out that Canadians, Justin Bieber, and Italians have one thing in common: BAD arguments.

Justin Bieber, regretfully for me, hails from Canada. I wish I could pull up a transcript from my fight with Lindsey, but it basically went like this:

I tell her my master plan about Canada, sneaking in a part about finding a nice Canadian girl to hide in the woods from the US government... harmless, right? Well, I guess not. I say some stupid things, and next thing I know Cristy (LONG STORY) is telling me that apparently Justin Beiber is the middle of our fight. Well, news for you Cristy: IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH JUSTIN BEIBER.

Anyway, it appears that "Beiber" isn't a word (ha) according to FireFox, so I saw those red squiggles underneath the word "Beiber." Also, I decided that the part of Canada that Beiber is from is NO LONGER part of Canada, because Canada is too awesome to be a

Oh, the newest in Easysites Videos is here: office WORKER starring clay BODNAR. I am tired of embedding and re-doing Youtube Videos, so click here:
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1Rb8mCdFOM& <<<

Well, the next one I think might have to do with Butterscotch the bird, mirrors, and Frank Sinatra. 

Questions and ideas in the Doobly-doo!

Relationship Statuses and Wal*Mart (Part One)

It seems to be a groundbreaking issue when someone changes their relationship status or, for that matter, anything else on Facebook. GET OVER IT AMERICA, Facebook isn't gospel. The most obnoxious comments come from the people that have 30 people listed as their sibling. I drew the line at calling Clay my "Romanian Cousin" there. To a certain degree, that holds truth. That is a short story, but I won't put that here....

The reason, I guess, that I decided to title this the way it is, is that the past 72 hours really accomplished a lot... I got a major portion of my research regarding the CarLynTon project, and I now have a job as a docent there on Saturdays... and I suggest no one ask for me directly, as I won't start for a while.

I also add this post for the reason of probably the first Project 559 production: Wal*Mart. I think that as a whole, the company needs to be shut down. The man at the Electronics Dept. didn't even ask me if I wanted to keep my Gift card. He just tossed it away like day old banana peel. I was overall offended. Next, the guy charged me about $14 for a few audio adapters! Wing-chow, the usual suspect. "Designed in the US, and Manufactured in China" my left foot! The rest of the trauma will be posted later... besides, the Star in Wal*Mart doesn't need to be a star, it should really be a dot or dash. They aren't all American like originally, or so I am told (It's been Chinese since I was little)!