Ecliptic Times: Vol V, Issue I

Ecliptic Times:
The Life, Times, and Happenings of the Sophomores of MHS
Volume V, Issue I
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The Finally Edition

EDIT: ALL GOOD!

Awesome Person of the Week
Jordan Librande, for letting me interview him about college life as the 2nd interview ever!

Paper News. News that you can use.
Sorry I've been gone without an issue so long, but I'm sure you guys are happy with the study guide. I'll try to update a bit more frequently, because even I realize that only one real issue in an entire month isn't very good. ALSO: I have found several applicants for help with my study guide, and I think we have it mostly worked out, so starting this weekend I'll be helped by Justin Vu, and Vanessa Nguyen will be filling out the other test review that Harrison students get. All this means for you guys is that the study guides will come out sooner, have some more stuff, and be just a bit better. So yay for you!

School Life
I'll start by re-mentioning Fence or Sewer?, but this time it's much better. With Justin's rudimentary progamming skills, he and I have been fashioning a playable, computer game version of Fence or Sewer, complete with pictures, music, and funny text. Here's where we have run into some problems. He can handle the programming, and I can handle the music (I've made some pretty cool tracks), but the only pictures we've been able to find are off the internet and don't really match. Anyway, getting to the point, we are looking to hire an artist. The artist needs to be able to draw backgrounds, and people will not be a priority. We already have some people in mind, but I thought I'd put this out in case anyone else who sees it is interested. And by hire, I mean we pay you money. If you're interested in this job opportunity, and have enough free time to make a lot of drawings, speak to me or Justin and present a sample of your work. When (if) we finish this, I'll be happy to burn copies for anyone who would want one and hand them out for free, but that's just a side note.

Getting to the second big bit of school news... The Talent Show!
You can read an alternate opinion here on Hall of Mirrors or a much shorter, more cynical version here on agapetus's blog. Anyway, getting to my review, from what I could understand from my scribbled notes, here is
Nerd at the Talent Show: A Review of "Meet Me in the Spotlight" by Ecliptichero

• To start off each of the 21 acts, we were gifted with the lovely prescence of our two MCs who were downright terrible. Lame jokes, no acting talent, and a bunch of other stuff made us want to scream "GET OFF THE STAGE!" Or at least I wanted to scream that. Top that off with the fact that they went around insulting people in the audience, misspoke at least once, at had absolutely no talent at all, and they were easily the worst part of the show. I think it can best be summed up by the three annoying little kids behind us, "That was weird!"
• Starting off we have the three dancers of Team Blackout. They came and danced in the audience in tank-tops and tight jeans, with plenty of "posterior gyrations". I just noticed the significance of their name and the fact that they're all African American. Huh. Anyway, I think it took Vanessa about a minute to get the glossy look out of her eyes.
• Save the Castle playing Decode. They were an Asian band, and surprisingly one of the loudest. The singer was pretty good, but the band overall was nothing special.
• Khoa Tran starts off the tradition of the most popular guys, who can sing and play guitar but aren't very good at either. They sing love songs in their soft voices, and of course get the most cheering. The only good thing was that he at least wrote his own song. Is that good? I can't decide.
• Anita Ly playing Consolation on the piano. To my highly trained ear, I could detect few mistakes, with only a bit of variation of tempo. She had a bit of microphone trouble, but overall a strong performance. I felt she was under-appreciated, as I could tell the difficulty of her peice, and of course she got about half the applause of the guitar-lover-singer guys, even though she has twice as much talent.
• Fancy Dancers was actually one of my favorite acts. It consisted of seven brightly colored dancers dancing around to a modified version of Coldplay's Viva la Vida. Maybe I just like the song, but I thought they did pretty well and were choreographed like professionals.
• Rachael Hall sang Somebody to Love by Queen. She was easily one of the best singers, and very powerful, but to me her song seemed a bit drawn out. Still though, better than the other singers at least in terms of talent.
• Jennifer San Filipo & Tim Kim with a singing duet to the song Baby It's Cold Outside. They spiced up their singing with a bit of dancing, which added some good variety. Jennifer was very good, but Tim seemed too soft and didn't really seem like he was anything special. It seemed to me like anyone could have replaced him and done at least a similar job.
• Christian Almogela was easily my favorite act. I mean, Waiting by Gabe "Youtube" Bondoc? SQU~E~E~E~!!!! Anyway, that's what they two girls next to me probably thought. Rather than go over another one of these guys (see: Khoa Tran, except he didn't even right his own song.) I'll complain about my seat. It gave me a good view, but to my left were the SQUEE girls, in front of me was a family with a 4-year-old girl who kept getting up and swinging around her two stuffed animals, behind me were the three kids who kept talking whenever they got bored (like during every piano song), and to my right were two journalists who kept using their cell phones as lights and parents who seemed to be the parents of every gangster on stage. But I got them all back at the end when I yelled as loud as I could right in their ears. Muhahahahahah. ANYWAY, back to the show.
• SouLegit was the next band, with a guitar girl, a singing guy, two singing girls, and a singing girl who also played piano. They played Fears(?) and Poker Face. The piano girl was easily the most talented, and though the guy singer brought the band down a bit (at least in my opinion) they all had high energy and you could tell they were enjoying themselves.
• Ride (formally Hold On) was a bad band to end the first set on. They played Silvergun Superman by Stone Temple Pilots, which was fine. The girl singer was too soft, but my main complaint was the lead guitarist, who hogged the stage, kept turning up his amp to drown out the singer even more, used way to much distortion, and showed off though he wasn't anything special. Maybe he should go play some Gabe Youtube songs instead.
• Intermission: EVERYONE LOVES OVERPRICED JUNK FOOD!!!!
• That's it for now. Read the rest later in the issue.

Contests
The Im in ur ________ ________ing ur ________. contest is still going strong. So far, we have "i'm in your house eating your food" (Joseph) and "im in ur face stabbin ur nose" (Justin)

We are still taking submissions!

Distractions. Links for the procrastinators.
Today I would like to show you some of the weirder/awesomer music videos out there. These are all pretty good songs after you listen to them for a while though.
Frontier Psychiatrist. Easily the best.
Mercury. What did I just watch?
Flux. Totally awesome.
One Month Off. Death to fairy tales!
Weapon of Choice. Christopher Walken. That is all.

Story Time
If you haven't already read Tower, scroll down and check it out. Unfortunately, I did not win the contest :(. I'm also working on a new one! No idea when it'll be ready. Also, I scrapped my old story because even I have to admit it was pretty lame.

Calvinisms and Other Quotes.
Yes, once again it is time for another round of CALVINISMS! In case you don't know, these are all said by Calvin Yan.
"Give me my mitten right now. Don't make me whip you!"
"His name could be Mr. Frontster for all I care!" (speaking about a guy name Mr. Baxter.)
"Oh yeah? We had a BLACK VICE-PRESIDENT!!!" (about middle school)
"ARE... YOU... SERIOUS?!?!?"
"Trees are like Micheal Jackson: they're there. But now MJ's dead, so trees are greater than Michal Jackson."
"My favorite scale is Beef G-flat minor. na NA na NA!!!"

Here are some other quotes by other people.
"I'm gonna go look at the sun now." - Jeremy
"Erosion stole the e from pi!" - Me
"I was losing the game before it was cool!" - Me
"Scientifically crushing a can!" - Me

Interview with Jordan Librande.
Ecliptic Times: Hello, how are you?
Jordan Librande: I'm doing well.
ET: Let's start off with some basics. What school do you go to, and what grade are you?
JL: I am a freshmen (13th grade) and Harvey Mudd College in southern California.
ET: What was it like getting into this college?
JL: I wrote some essay, filled out some forms, and they were like, "Hello, you're accepted."
ET: Do you have any tips for students... about finding the right college?
JL: It was really difficult for me... I don't really have any tips, no.
ET: ...about the application process?
JL: Spend lots of time writing essay. You can still get rejected from some of the top schools if you rely only on your grades and on the SAT. That's what my friend [Bill Smith] did, and it got him nowhere.
ET: How should students structure high school in order to get into the best colleges?
JL: Take lots of AP classes, do a lot of extracurricular work, and tons of community service. Colleges like community service.
ET: What is the biggest thing one should look for in a college?
JL: It depends on your preference; Basically, just a college that you're interested in, whether it be sports or art or whatever.
ET: Have you managed to stay in touch with your old friends? How/why not? Do you miss them?
JL: Yes, it's easy these days thanks to Facebook and the internet. I don't miss them though, because we have great parties during break.
ET: What us your dorm arrangement?
JL: I live in a suite with 8 others. It is very messy, but loads of fun.
ET: What are your roommates like?
JL: They are good people like me.
ET: What is a college class schedule like?
JL: I go to class from 9-4 on M-W, and maybe on T-Th too. I forget. On Friday I only have to hours of class. Really though it's a flexible schedule, all schedules are different, and it depends on your classes.
ET: What do you do in your free time?
JL: I dance, play video games like Rock Band and Rock Band. Also, we make real music. In out suite we have 12 guitars and an electronic drum kit. [They also play RB2, Beatles RB, and Lego RB! - Dylan]
ET: How often do you see your family? Do you miss them?
JL: I seem them about once every 3 months. I sometimes miss them.
ET: Is there ever a question you've always wanted to be asked in an interview?
JL: Jordan, how are you so awesome. I wish I could be just like you.?
ET: Well, thanks for your time. Any closing thoughts?
JL: Wait... I don't have to answer that question? I like college.
ET: Finally, Jordan, how are you so awesome? I wish I could be just like you.?
JL: Yes, you do.

Once again thanks to Jordan Librande!

Self-Made Graph Time
Hopefully you can read that.
In a survey of Spanish III students, on average 60% like Marion better, 20% like Figey better, and 20% don't care/like them equal. I do not have to confess the number of students surveyed.

Rants and Raves
This week's rant is the talent show stuff.

Nerd at the Talent Show: Pt 2!

• Coming off of the intermission we have Spider Mafia playing Homecoming. Though they started off loud and overpowering the singer, the mixer fixed it up pretty quickly. They had good energy, and the lead girl singer also played guitar. At one point in the song there was a CRAZY loud guitar squelch, and I jumped in my seat and knocked all of my stuff to the floor. MY EARS!!!
• Karen Granadosin with Slow Motion. Nothing special, glittery t-shirt... you guessed it, one of the most popular, which at least in my opinion sets the stage off bad from the beginning, which would have been fine if she had to talent to win me back over. Unfortunately for her, she didn't. At one point in the song her voice was like a sine graph. (For those who don't know, this is a sine graph.)
• The dance group Rivalry. Though my original impression that they were gangsters was not unfounded (see: Christian Almogela), they actually turned out to be pretty good. To me, their dance was entirely based on sex appeal, which obviously went over well with the teenage crowd. After the girls left, the guys did some beat-boxing. I guess it was good? It didn't match the standard of their dancing or the dance itself, but I guess some variety it good?
• Jennifer San Filipo was at it again, this time playing, according to the MCs, a song "name called "Home"" This was another one of my favorite acts, and I apparently wrote down "You's torud." Yeah, I don't even know.
• NKCM. See: Khoa Tran. Seriously, how many of these guys are there? Here we had two; one who couldn't really play guitar but tried his best, and another who dedicated the song to half the audience and passed out roses to his 20-person family, the judges, and random audience members too. They played too songs. I think one was Gabe Youtube. I don't care about the other.
• Stormy Banda and the Groovy Reptiles was a great change of pace. We got some real rock with At the Hop and Blitzkrieg Bop. Rockin' solos, great transitions, and high energy obviously means they didn't get as much applause as the two who went before. Our school's great!
• Cecilia Nguyen played the piano and sang a rendition of Speechless by Lady Gaga. She had pretty good singing and the piano was a nice touch. I kept waiting for the song to get "rockin' ", but it never did. That's not her fault though; she played well.
• Dominic King dancing to the Saw theme and Fireflies. The phrase that came to mind here was that he was "the best at what he does." And quite frankly, what he does he does quite well. For the first song though, he dancing didn't really seem to match the music though. For the second, however, both were downright freaky. A pretty good performance overall.
• Amanda Tabora singing "I'd Choose Me" or maybe just "Me". I guess it was about narcissism? She was kinda popular, seemed to sing a bit high, and didn't really to anything special to stand out.
• Alyza & The Stop Go Messengers playing I Want You Back by the Jackson 5. High energy, and pretty groovy, with some sax thrown in for good measure. Another solid band with a solid performance.
• Finally, we had Risky Business. This was basically... no, this was just two drummers drumming. They had some nice spins, and danced kinda? Once again "the best at what they do" came to mind. If nothing else, they gave a good drum-roll for the announcing of the results.
• And here we have the results themselves.
• Best Dance Group: Rivalry
  Best Instrumental: Anita Ly
  Best Dancer: Dominic King
  Best Vocalist: Karen Granadosin
  Best in Band: Alyza & the Stop Go Messengers
  Best Vocalist & Instrumentals: Cecilia Nguyen
  Best Group Vocalists: Jennifer San Filipo & Tim Kim

Congratulations to everyone, even if I don't agree. Everyone in the show worked hard, and I'd give it an 8/10 overall.

AP World Study Guide will be coming later

Closing Thoughts
This issue took a REALLY LONG TIME.
Please enjoy it.

fin

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Mercury's in retrograde.