Amazon Recommendations: Not a Quill

Friday, December 2nd, 2011

So making a joke against twitter’s #penchat and #pencilchat, I am trying to start #quillchat. Of course I went to amazon to try and purchase a cheap quill set so I could get pictures to accompany the gags, upstart the quill re-birth movement. (“stay classic, stay classy, stay quill” is the WIP slogan). Long story short, Amazon does not know what to do with people like me, who purchase such eclectic things with it. Hey Amazon, not all eclectic people wear Tutu’s! That is an stereotype! Please stop recommending I purchase tutu’s!

 

 

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Bah! Humbug

Friday, December 2nd, 2011

I despise Christmas music. Maybe it’s me being a Grinch, or an unemotional soulless asshole, but I have always hated Christmas music.  I resent the fact that one of my favorite artists, M.Ward, spent a lot of time he could be using on other music efforts to release a Christmas album (a very she & him Christmas). Christmas music is where music goes to die. Bad music that is played on the radio constantly 1 month of the year. I avoid at all costs, the catchy tunes will have me infected with more misery (not the intended joy). I am keeping my noise cancelling headphones with me everywhere around campus, needing to avoid Christmas music at all costs.

It was to my surprise and pleasure to find an interesting setting in Last.fm’s page:

A Christmas music filter! Genius! I need one of these for everywhere. I can’t deafen myself for just a month all that easily, although the thought of pouring molten acid into my ears is seeming more and more appealing. Last.fm, I applaud you.

Christmas music, I hate you!

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Abott & Costello

Thursday, December 1st, 2011

Listen to a recording of Who’s On First by Abott & Costello, performed by myself and a friend (Kevin). I recorded and editing the entire thing at Depauws recording studio, as a part of the ITAP program. Have a listen:

 

Click here to listen

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How to Cook a Turkey on Thanksgiving Day

Thursday, November 24th, 2011

How to Cook a Turkey

  1. Purchase turkey. You have not thought far enough ahead to get a good one, so make do with what you have.
  2.  You forgot to pre-heat the oven, didn’t you? Whatever, just turn the oven up to 450 degrees, it’l warm in no time.
  3.  Thaw the turkey before cooking. You can do this in the oven while it heats up.
  4.  wait around, bake your desserts. That stuffing needs to be made.
  5.  Watch some football on TV
  6.  You forgot about the turkey. Examine your burned-outside, frozen-inside specimen of ex-edible dinner.
  7.  Turn off all kitchen hardware and pile everyone in the lap. Little Johnny can sit on his older sister’s lap.
  8.  Drive the family to the local Chinese Restaurant
  9.  Enjoy a delicious thanksgiving dinner!
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Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

I was trying to figure out if the above comment is spam. Google translator was not help, but then I noticed that it Comes from a hotmail.com email address.

Yep, it’s spam.

 

 

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Demystifying the complex: 5 Ball Cascade Practice Path

Friday, November 4th, 2011

Guys, I have been approaching this 5 ball cascade all wrong. I have been practicing the 4 ball cascade, lefty 3 ball shower, and some ’5 ball practice’ siteswaps. On those siteswaps I have been making 0 progress. my 5 ball cascade has been making 0 practice. Then I realized something so obvious, it’s painful. Learn 5 balls the same way you learned 3. Breaking it down throw by throw, and building up hand speed, and (more importantly) accuracy and consistency.

Start with 1 ball. Toss it high above your head at the 5 ball height. No ‘about eye level here’, but some previous tinkering with numbers, as I am sure you have done, has you knowing about where this is. Throw a bit higher than that, for safety and accuracy’s sake. (If you are bored, I bet you are skilled enough to do this with 3 balls.

Move up to 2 balls. Don’t throw one at the apex of the other, but rather quickly – as quick as you can. OK, not that fast. (the tempo will make sense when you have three, then you can scale it back and do 2 balls). Make sure you are not moving your hands too much to catch the balls before moving on to 3. Throw and catch both before throwing again.

3 balls now, do a 3 ball flash. Good. Now try, except count out ’1-2-3-4-5′ out loud as you throw them. 1,2,3, should be on throws, and 4 and 5 should be said before the first ball lands (right before it lands, in fact). Catch all of the balls before tossing again. While you will inevitably play with 4 and 5 balls, ensure that you have 3 solid before really continuing.

up to 4 balls! Just remember to watch the ball’s height, and listen to the sound as they land – it all should be pretty consistent. Try counting out 12345 and seeing if you have time to say that ’5′ before catching. It’l be quick. Just remember, don’t fumble constantly around with 5 (not getting better) until you can do 4 consistently. It may not look like it, but your hands are really learning something here.

OK, and the moment you have been waiting for. 5 tosses, 5 catches. Look elsewhere on the internet for grips and how to hold the balls. (I purchased smaller beanbags to practice with). If you have 4 consistent, being able to throw and catch 5 most of the time should not be hard at all. But again, don’t move on to 6 until you have these 5 nice and consistent. This is probably the step that will achieve the most attention (deservedly or not). If you are fumbling and dropping most of the time, scale back to 4, to 3, ect. Every once in a while, do a pyramid. Being with 20 tosses of 1 ball, then 2, 3, and so on. Get comfortable with three balls in each of your hands.

And finally, 6 tosses. Now it starts to get fun, (and the advice repetitive) but essentially it goes like this: toss 6, catch 6. Repeat until cozy, do it 10 times in a row without dropping. Toss 7, catch 7. Be able to do it 10 times in a row without dropping. Move like this all the way up to 10, where you are throwing each ball twice. After that, try going straight to 15, then 20, or maybe smaller jumps. Tossing and catching – surprinsingly- is better advice than keeping a failing pattern alive – learning how to toss a ball from odd angles and while violating the 1-plane rule (no front/back shit) is not helping you learn any good muscle memory, despite how cool you feel getting that pattern solid. Take it easy, count out some numbers, and build it slowly.

So really, just learn 5 the same way you learned 3. It seems so obvious! It is so simple! But it works.

Disclaimer: I do not have a 5 ball cascade down, this advice is discovery+intuition+basic 3 ball tutorial concepts+other peoples general juggling advice, for 5 and other ball cascades.

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Another Google Reader Opinion Post

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

I have reserved my judgement about the changes to Google Reader until after the changes have occured. They have occured. I hate it. Here is why.

Google reader was the best ‘social network’ to exist thus far for me. Why? It was specialized. Google+ and Facebook duke it out for the end-all-be-all-one-stop-shop center for social interaction on the internet. This is idiotic. What we need more is specialization, think of the linux ‘one thing well’ philosophy. More specialized communities such as reddit, twitter, instagram, tumblr, quora, and yes – google reader have flourished underneith facebooks rule of terror. Now Google+ is taking them on directly, and that’s all fine and good (whatever) but the recent changes to gReader have merged google+ into Google Reader.

When I found something worth sharing on Google Reader, I would shift+s, it, then continue on. The post I shared would go to my shared items, which is a page on the internet generated from an RSS or Atom feed. But most importantly it can be viewed by other google reader users, right inside of Google Reader. I would read what people I follow (such as my friends, or tech guru’s) have posted, then I would go to my subscriptions and share posts I liked. The best part of this is that people would only see my posts if they wanted to. Now, my posts show up in my google+ timeline, and if I continue doing it the way I am I will flood everyone’s inbox with my stupid internet shit they don’t care about.

But the posts shared in my  stream are viewed at a different site than gReader, They are excerpts only, one has to click through and open a new tab/reader to view the content. All the good out of google reader (content in one place) is gone now. Fuuuu! . . . Fuuuu!

</rant>

Somebody else’s opinion Here

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To Be Human

Sunday, October 30th, 2011

What separates humans from apes? Evolutionary speaking, people look for a line, but there was no animal that transitioned to being a human, there was no first human. For this animal to be human, there must be other humans. To be human is to be social.

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I Attempt Fighting Fantasy

Saturday, October 29th, 2011

Fighting Fantasy is a series of game-books. Think of an overly complicated Choose your own adventure book. Read more about them here. Like choose your own adventure, but with stamina, items, etc. OK, so lets get going on our magical, and hopefully sodomy-free adventure! The first thing I need to do (after buying a book and pulling out my metal die) is create a character. There are a few already created for me to get started with, but screw that! Am I right? (…I am)

The book I bought is called ‘City of Thieves’. So, I am assuming I will be playing as some thiefing character. The first thing this character needs is a name! A glorious name for a glorious character! I lanched this name-generating web page and got “Horril Darkeyes the Wondrous”. That sounds like a pretty shitty name, so lets just go with “Uncle Touchy McClumbsy-Buttons Jr.”  Now that – that is a name of champions. The first thing I roll for is ‘skill’. This reflects my fighting expertise. I roll a one, which gives me the lowest-possible-skill of 7. Sweet. Luckily my stamina and luck arn’t bad (20 and 10, respectively). Uncle Touchy may not be skilled,  he can take average damage, but he does have above par luck! [edit: Nope. Having high luck is bad, this character is shit] So lets start our adventure!

I have entered a strange town, wealthy but nervous. Despite enjoying my own company to that of others, I decide to stay there the night. I go to an inn and then a fat mayor shows up and demands he talks to me. Apparently they have been put under a curse, yada yada Zanbar Bone, yada city of theives, ect.  or something. I don’t really know, I just kind of skimmed this bit. Reading is hard! I have to go on a quest to find this Nicodemus guy. He is some old wizard, and totally not a brand of quit-smoking gum.

Uncle Touchy gets to Port wherever, and  immediately an angry looking guard confronts me. My choice is to attack him, sell something to him, or tell him I want to be taken to Nicodemus. Uh, taken to Nicodemus! Duh!

So basically some guards grabbed me and said I was ugly. My choice is to let them put me in a dungeon, bribe them, or fight them. I decided that bribing them was the best option, because there is no way these guy’s are not corrupt in the city of theives!

The next choice is how much to bribe them for, 5, 10, or 15. I don’t want to lose half of my money, but I think they might sodomize me if I only give them 5, so I pick 10. Uncle Touchy is not a fan of sodomy.

After a while, I am walking down a street, and a ragged beggar boy runs out and hands me a message. It says that 6 arrows are about to kill me if I don’t drop 10 coins and leave. I doubt these people would share the gold, so there probably is only one. I call that guy’s bluff, probably just the beggar boy trying to get some cash for magazines he is too young to read.

I was, well, wrong. Not a bluff at all. I roll a Die to see how many arrows hit me. I roll a fucking 6, and this brings my stamina down from 20 to 2. Uncle Touchy is still alive! [insert surviving penetration/sodomy joke here]

I decide to staggar bleeding into a strange house, mostly because a little girl told me to. An old-as-fuck guy heals my wounds, kind of! I am up to 14 stamina, but he takes my sexy broadsword and gives me a crappy one instead. This makes me lose a skill point and I become the world’s least skilled pedophile. 

And on top of being an unskilled pedophile, I have to fight guards because I don’t have papers. What is this, Arizona? (hey-o!). This doesn’t look good for me, but I try anyway! I beat the guards, (somehow– I rolled snake eyes on myself once), but I lost all but 2 of my stamina points doing so. In all honesty, it would have been pretty pathetic to watch.

I beat a barechested muscle man at a game of dont-drop-the-cannon-ball! I remember playing that when I was younger, those were the good ol’ days. I pay a fat crystal-ball user for the location of Nicodimius and head off to look for him.

Nicotine the wizard-douche tells me he is too much of a wimp to fight zanybar himself, and that I have to do it. (gee, who didn’t see that one coming?). Well, shit. Basically I have to buy/aquire a bunch of stuff to beat him. I am happy I am still alive at this point, so I decide to keep reading the book.

I aquire the silver arrow, but die by the hands of a giant motherflipping centipede in a sewer. Possibly the least honerable death anyone can think of, being killed by a bug while standing in shit.

I hate this book. Fuck reading.

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Choose Your Own Adventure Comic

Thursday, October 27th, 2011

first off: check out http://checkthismusicout.com

and after that shameless plug, check this out for interesting and relevant things: http://samizdat.cc/cyoa/

Comics? Those are for kids!

Choose your own adventure stories? Those are for kids!

That’s right. I am combining the two most disrespected forms of art by society -real corner-of-the-library shit- and putting them in one project. To be delivered (wait for it…) on the internet!. How could this possibly go wrong? That’s right  It can’t – it’s too awesome.

My current project is an incredibly epic choose your own adventure comic. Right now the comic has 80 panels, some of them will need to be broken into multiple (ie: more narrative panels), so I am guessing in the end about 100 separate images, each with webcomic-like size and formatting. It’s pretty cool.

Writing this was not as difficult as one would think . The first step is to get an overall idea for the project, where certain paths will lead (in most cases – where the ‘correct’ or ‘winning’ path(s) will go). I got out a pen and paper (no, really!) and wrote down some key events, some important things that I knew would change how the story worked. I then roughed those out into a flow chart in my mind, how the hero will go to the different paths. In mine, it quickly splits into three separate adventures, and two of them merge back together. It’s actually much more complicated, all of the stories cross and weave about each other, sharing events (often from separate points of view). This depth is partially why I am so excited about this project. The next step in the creation is making a spreadsheet. I fired up OneNote and my tablet, but the sheet was quickly too large for that, so I switched to my desktop and used online flowchart software lucidchart.com to create the flowchart. I should have just used some desktop flowchart software, so I would have more control. The flowchart is for for reference and brainstorming. It’s easiest to write these things when you can see the big picture, and not get stuck just traveling down one path.

The next step was opening up Google docs and creating a spreadsheet. In separate columns: [description, choice 1, link 1, choice 2, link 2, choice 3, link 3, type]. Type is not needed, it just identifies the panel as being a ending, narrative, or choice panel, and thus the above pie chart can be created. The spreadsheet is confusing and dense, but beautiful in it’s layout, it’s is set up in a way that almost all of the links go to a point further on in the doc, not previously. That is to say, if it were a book, you would always be turning further, not back.

I will update here with more details as I work on the project. My plan is to look for some artists to help while I go back over the spreadsheet, and add visual cues and basic layout information to help with the art later.

 

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