Day 036: What I'll Be Writing About

Cogswell XL is no more. It has been conquered with time and patience. This blog is technically no longer obligatory. But it's still happening.

It's my GOAL to write a post every day. If I get a week behind, that's it: done. It's not worth the pain and money (because money = time).

That being said, posts on critical thinking are lame. Even I barely want to read then.

What I write about will be what I did that day, be it any of the following:

• Buying a CD
• Inventing technology
• Mastering the Perry the Platypus noise
• Building an island
• Riding a falcon
• Slaying a colossus
• Climbing the Eiffel Tower, backwards
• Flying a pinstriped kite

Who knows what it could be. But when I create that portal to the digiworld you'll be the second to know.

Day 035: Last Day of Cogswell XL

So the class I'm doing this for – a kind of freshman intro class – is ending today. This is technically the last post I have to make.

However I think I'd like to keep writing. But I'd like to actually write a blog everyday, not skip a day, write two the next, etc. It's not as fun writing when you're not in the mood of what you're writing.

So I did learn several things from this once-a-week class.

I actually picked up on how it feels to not procrastinate.

I learned about the importance of making goals.

I still have a ways to go before I'm comfortable in my own skin, but, eh, I'm a little further.

Day 034: Animation Meeting and Website

Over the course of a few weeks, three people have come to me to ask about making a website for the animation club. Well I'd be glad to! On the condition that there's actually communication between the club and I.

I did a website for a charity organization once. Well they didn't have anything together. They had all these farfetched ambitions and no one was talking to me about what the website should look like or what should go on it.

Well how the fudge am I supposed to make a website without knowing what they want? Is being a psychic a prerequisite? Well the problem was THEY didn't even know what they wanted. Plus the organization wasn't even official yet.

So even though I would've loved to help Japan in this way, I'm glad I'm done with the organization. There's nothing worse than wasting time caring more about something that the people who gave it to you.

So if I'm going to do this animation website, I need to be in near constant contact with the club, especially in the initial stage. I KNOW how to build websites; that's not the issue. The club and I need to work together.

Luckily, there's a scheduled meeting every Monday, so that's a start. I'm gonna sketch up some possible designs and submit it next meeting.

If everyone works together, it should be fun! It'll be cool contributing to a club.

Day 033: Winchester Mansion

So the wife of the guy who made the Winchester rifle during the civil war built the this giant house until the day she died because of some superstition that the people killed by the rifle were going to haunt her.

My mom and I checked it out. It's a beautiful Victorian house With tons of room and doors.

One of the cool things was that a good number of the doors went absolutely nowhere, either to a brick wall or to open space. There was also this staircase that get closer and closer to the ceiling until it touched like something out of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.

I got some great photos and I'm hoping to process them with HDR and make the look at real and such. That's my thing. I'm into hyperrealistic photography.

It was hard to take everything in, but I could appreciate some of the detail. Everything had detail everything there had a reason. Everything from the door hinges to the room design.

I told my roommate about it and started explaining when he cut me off with “Uh, dude, I founded the supernatural club. Of course I know about the Winchester mansion.” Well. It was still cool to me.

I'm glad I went. Can't wait to process these photos!

Day 032: Cooking

Why do college students starve?

My answer: they can't cook anything other that ramen (that'd be my hook for an essay).

But I have been experimenting with ramen. I use Cup Noodle, add some instant miso and some spice and salt. It actually comes out pretty good, but nothing compared to the real ramen shop I went to with some friends.

Anyway, my mom came up for the weekend and had some recipes ready. We spent the making roast and stuffed bellpeppers. They actually turned out pretty well considering I did most of the work.

My problem is that I don't have the motivation to START cooking. I actually enjoy the process and the smells, but for some reason I don't like the thought of getting started. Hope fully that changes.

Day 031: Why it Sucks Doing Blog Posts Late

Every single time I start a journal, it fails, because I eventually fall behind.

Then, I'm stuck writing an elaborate page from five days ago on something I don't even remember that well.

A picture of a picture, etc.

Elaborate, because I'm an overachiever. I can't just write my thoughts: I have to write my thoughts with every detail in a way that sounds interesting (hopefully) with pictures and cool links. 

But it sucks because if I get behind, I can't remember why it was so important to post, and there's no detail that goes into it, and it's completely uninteresting because even I don't feel like it's interesting anymore.

So even though this post is a day late, I can't remember what I was going to write about so I'm just writing automatically pretty much. 

Blogs would be a lot more fun if you kept up with them.

Day 030: Dimension

You ever have those random conversations with your friend and then suddenly strike gold? Yeah that happened.

So we were talking about cross-dimensional tractors when I stopped: "Holy crap. This would make an amazing video game."

Tractors were thrown out; the next big thing was born.

Something dimensiony

The thing is a puzzle game where you move through dimensions.

The hard thing about this game is: we live in the 3rd dimension; it's freaking HARD to imagine even the 4th dimension (but I think I've got a pretty good concept so far).

Now my roommate was like, "Dude, are you okay?"

I was face down on the desk. "Dimensions are hard..."

"Okay, dude, it sounds like a good idea, but you need a team or else this thing is gonna collapse on itself."

So I trusted him, he being my elder and having more experience with video game production.

Now, I'm keeping my eye out for anyone who can help. If it's one thing I learned from good ideas: it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. That way, it gets improved by being bounced off more heads, the work is much easier, and the game's completion is that much more possible.

But yeah I've been obsessing over this game and really ought to prioritize better.

The first thing I thought when I woke up was "What if I take the 1st derivative of the 4th dimension?"

Day 029: Our First Donation

So between classes we play video games. Mostly fighters. Just a few...

• Marvel vs. Capcom
• BlazBlue
• Street Fighter
• Brawl
• Mortal Kombat

But we were like "Dude, something's missing." 

So we rallied three of us up and got Soul Calibur IV from GameStop. We know Soul Calibur V is coming out, like, next year, but we're not gonna wait that long.

We donated it to the game room. It only cost $15, but it felt good contributing to the school. It makes you feel a part of it. 

Every day since then, SCIV's been all the rage. It's the only thing people play in the game room (beside the occasional Scott Pilgrim) and it feels good to have made that possible for everyone. 

I personally freaking love this game. I like, get it, mostly.

I'm hoping to make some thrifty yet valuable donations in the future.

Day 028: This Apartment is Broken

It's not even broken in the good way. That would mean the apartment is so good it ruins living in an apartment. No, it's broken in the bad way, meaning nothing works, and no one's fixing any of the following:

1. The air conditioner is raining
2. The air conditioner is raining yellow liquid
3. The dishwasher occasionally screeches, not unlike a velociraptor 
4. The drain sucks
5. There's little to no ventilation in some rooms
6. The towel rack is in a state of disrepair
7. All the sink knobs are switched like some dyslexic prank

And then the guy finally comes when none of us are here so we don't really know if he's done anything to the AC vent. 

Still leaking.

We continue complaining, and he finally comes a second time like it wasn't in his job description. It refuses to leak because that's just the way it is, so he thinks we're just causing trouble, the immature college students we are. 

Needless to say, his act of observation alone was not enough to fix the problem. Still leaking, sometimes pouring. 

He hasn't come a third time, but it just pisses me off to come home to a drenched floor and overflowing cups knowing no one's taken care of the problem, considering mold is a...oh, what's the phrase: safety hazard.

I have very few pet peeves, one of which is the sound of large, unnecessary gulping. It's disgusting. Apparently, it also bothers me to have wet floors. I know, it's irrational.

Day 027: Figure Drawing

Everyone here can draw like it's common sense. I can't. So I just wanted to rage and say that.

That'd be pretty much it, except I took initiative and tried to learn basic figure drawing.

Yeah, I've gotten frontal view and the side of an archer. Obviously I've got thousands of sketches to go before I can technically complain about this, but it's a start.

I could ask some people on tips but honestly I feel like they're so skilled, I'd be a burden and not even know what to ask. So until then, I'll teach myself.

Day 026: Crash Bandicoot & PCSX

Crash Bandicoot was the first video game I ever played and I loved it. The originals are much better than the newer ones.

I don't have a PS1 memory card so I downloaded PCSX to play Crash on my laptop. But the real reason was for the sole purpose of playing it on my laptop.

It was annoying finding the plugins (because it doesn't come with them) but I found them here.

The games are so simple that they just run flawlessly. No skips or anything.

It's even better playing with a Sixaxis controller. It's simple to set up.

Uh, yeah. So have fun!

Day 025: Anthropomorphism

I had a dream I met a polar bear who talked. I was going to get a dog but I ended up taking the polar bear. I actually named him Bob. He was aggressive though, so I had to assert myself as the alpha. Eventually he gave in and said he'd calm down. He actually turned out to be very sweet and I miss him, but really I only posted this because I like anthropomorphism

I don't know what it is. Whenever I truly love a movie to the point of hating it, it's because of anthropomorphism. It's because some or most of the characters are animals or non-human creatures that can talk and interact like humans.

For that reason, I love these movies:

• Avatar
• How to Train Your Dragon
• Starship
• Pokemon episode 3

But only serious ones, like not Spongebob, Adventure Time (where the premise is there is no premise).

My love for anthropomorphism drives me to my major foci:

• Artificial intelligence (giving life to hunks of metal or computer generated (CG) characters, especially non-humans)
• Teleoperation (mapping your movements to a robot or CG body)
• Virtual reality (creating a world for your CG body)

Teleoperation is what my glove controller project is all about. I want the game to be immersible so it feels like you're in it. 

The problem is, the things your CG body (e.g. Deadpool) can do will be limited by your physical body, meaning you can't actually propel yourself off the ground with guns, so there will have to be some non-intuitive control that lets you do that instead. Like awkwardly jumping and shooting down. It's gonna be a fun beta run.

Day 024: Magic Draft

Tonight was Friday Night Magic, but it was special because it was also ClubFest and BirthdayFest.

During ClubFest all the clubs set up booths in the Dragon's Den (auditorium) so people could go around and sign up for things. I missed the pizza but I signed up for the Magic draft (explained below) and the Let's Be Kids Again Club's assassin game.

Assassin is where everyone who signs up gets a target, who also signed up. You have to kill them with Nerfs or foam weapons without anyone seeing. Then you get their target and continue. Or something like that.

Because two people named Andrew were born relatively close to each other, we celebrated both their birthdays at BirthdayFest which happened a little later. So there was food and drinks while we played Magic.

Now at the Magic draft, everyone's given 45 cards. You pick one you like and pass the rest to the next person and keep it up until no cards are left. I ended up making a black-red deck. Basically I think that means it's good at attacking, but attacking the opponent directly (because usually you have to go through their creatures).

All our names were put into some computer and it matched me up with a walking rulebook and I lost 2-0.

Then it matched me up with someone I at least had a chance with. It went a while and I actually had a ton of fun, and ended up winning 2-0.

Lastly it matched me up with my roommate, the dictator of the club. I won the first round to both of our surprise. The next two rounds ran longer than anyone else's but he ended up winning 2-1. I'm was satisfied with the results.

So the draft was fun. I only had some idea what a good deck was but it was a good experience. I'd prefer to use my own deck next time, one that I know, but it was fun.

Day 023: Run

I wanted to see if running really WOULD knock my Solar Chakra back into balance.

So I went to Baylands Park around the corner. I wanted to walk to take in all the nature because of how refreshing it is. I willed myself to run.

I found myself at a fork in the road: boring park track, or adventure (Bay Trail). Well the choice was obvious.

Running along the bay was inspiring; the breeze, the birds, and the water instilled happiness in me.

I kept running till I realized I had no idea where I was going. I thought the trail would go in a circle.  It just kept going.

Months passed and I became one of the bay creatures. They taught me to fish for myself, and the value of working in a flock.

One morning a helicopter flew overhead and I gained its attention by throwing stones with "SOS" written on them.

It dropped me off at the apartment where I told this to Facebook. I'm confident a good handful of my friends believe the helicopter bit, when really nothing past getting lost is true.

I ached hard after the run, but I felt a ton better. I want to do it again.

Day 022: Triangle Problem

I have a mathematical problem, and I hope you can understand my frustration.

2 lines drawn from ends of known leg at respective angles converge at a point

Imagine a triangle. You know the length of 1 leg, and 2 angles.

If you draw a line from each end of the known leg at their respective angles, they will converge at a definite point.

I see NO reason trigonometry needs to be used.

The core of the question is this (as I've decided): how do you convert an angle to a slope?

Every angle has a definite slope, and yes, if graphed it is the graph of tan(theta).

Maybe you can find a graph that overlays it.

But the heart of the question is how do you solve a triangle without trigonometry? You have to get creative, but if you get into it, it'll eat up hours. I know I've spent a good week's worth in the past few years.

What is my motivation? To chase what feels so right inside.

One day, I will find the answer, and if a constant is involved, I will name it after myself.

Day 021: Chakra

My own photography of the chakra system

I think my Solar Plexus is out of whack.

If you look at the photograph to the right, it's the yellow one. Coincidentally, it's the only one of the 7 chakra points I didn't think to give any strings.

I'd been looking up automatic writing when I digressed to a page on chakra.

I found myself here trying to figure out how to unblock it, but it had no answers.

A Yahoo! answer said exercise and keeping contact with those I love would be a good start.

She mentioned the book Eastern Body, Western Mind and I really want to check it out.

Anyway, I'm planning on taking meaning to balance that one chakra, because in nervous situations, it's that one place that aches, right below the ribcage.

I'd love to get everything flowing again.

Day 020: The Story I'm Writing

These next series of posts need to be short and sweet, and more or less just my thoughts.

Automatic writing.

Actually, that's how I used to write. I'd just let it come to me. That's not to say the story made any sense, but rewritten, I was actually proud of it.

My brother and I came up with a story idea -- maybe 7 years ago. We called it Kitsorugi.

It's a fantasy-adventure story. It's fun imagining you're a part of your own world, especially if others jump in.

We used to hang out on GaiaOnline daily in the virtual Towns, forums, and zOMG.

Anyway I miss those times. It'd be nice to get back to it. But the thing is, we still don't have a solid plotline, even though we had been writing.

Now, being at a video game college, I think it'd be a better idea to focus on the art, characters and plot. That way it'll make us feel like something's getting done and like the story is actually being furthered story along.

Day 019: Pascal Program

Although the Oak C Program might be misleading, I actually do get into programming for real.

Pascal's Triangle

Heard of Pascal's Triangle? Thing used for binomial coefficients? No...? Well it works like this nice animation to the right:

Each cell is the sum of the two cells above it.

My instructor was like, "Hey, why don't you make a program that displays Pascal's Triangle up to a certain row?"

And I was like, "Hey, why don't I?" So I went ahead and made a whole application.

ELEMENT - print specific cell from triangle at given row & column e.g. ("element 3 2")
EXIT - exits the program
HELP - helps you out with stuff: taxes, dog, etc.
ROW - print specific row from triangle
UPTOROW - print triangle up to certain row

If you ever need to explore Pascal's Triangle, my C program should do the trick.

Want it? Excellent...

Problems:

1. You have to type in lowercase
2. If you only type (e.g.) "uptorow" without a number it'll wait until you type the number, refusing to tell you to do so in order to give you a hard time

Will I fix them? Probably not.

Day 018: College Life

Mini golf turned into a 1 AM laughing fit. 4th hole, I actually felt funny -- that's rare. So a good night was underway.

The blood of Tiger Woods doesn't run through our veins but we sure know how to make getting a ball to the hole intriguing.

• If at first you don't make it into the smallest ring of the skeeball hole, go and rage it in. You will get that hole-in-one.
• Keep no score -- argue your victory.
• If it takes 5 or more shots to get in the hole, you get to do it by hand.

We came home and some of the group followed us to our apartment. The elder of us (my roommate) talked about GDC and how you'll score swag and valuable advice/connections.

Then we moved to someone else's apartment, showed off art, and talked about theories.

Now, my roommate's theories take 2 unrelated things, mash them together and see where it goes. They usually run off a cliff. That's why they're funny.

And they're even funnier at 2am, like everything else.

These days need to happen more often.

Day 017: Glove Controller Progress #1

I'VE GOT IT: USB sock--

USB sock

Cool right! You can plug a USB cord into anything and make it cooler.

The USB sock, however, is equipped with an Arduino prototyping board and an accelerometer. What does this mean? You can move your hand in any which direction and get statistics about it for each axis:

• Whether the equilibrium is disturbed
• Which direction you moved in
• How fast you moved

Reading hand move up, then down

See the first 2 blue boxes in that Processing screenshot? They represent me moving my hand up. The last two bars represent me moving my hand back down.

The key will be to find patterns of how you move your hand for certain game attacks (like to shoot something, you'll swing your hand in front of you). You record that pattern, and when you do it again, the program will recognize it and know that you just made the action for shooting something.

These patterns will be made of up of 3 spatial axes:

• X-axis movement (side-to-side)
• Y-axis movement (up and down)
• Z-axis movement (forward and back)

And 3 rotational axes:

• X-axis twist (pitch)
• Y-axis twist (yaw)
• Z-axis twist (roll)

Also known as the 6 degrees of freedom. Then -- in the case that this starts working -- I'll have the computer feed controls to the PS3. 

It's foolproof! Except for these few minor problems:

1. There may be major processing lag
2. Only 2 axes work at a time right now -- any more and the graph gets shabby
3. Right now I'm only HOPING 6 degrees of freedom are enough to distinguish between hundreds of a character's moves (I don't have any solid evidence that it will)

My immediate goals:

1. Read 3 axes without things slowing down
2. Get the program to display -- in words -- which direction I'm moving in

Day 016: Cave Story

"What'd you do today?" Cave Story, bro.

This indie game equals love. Why? Satisfying attacks coupled with anthropomorphism in an RPG setting.

Found it as the top game in the top game section of The Indie Game Database. Stoked to explore the other wicked-looking games.

All day -- taking a break to go to school -- I've been on this game. Great story, challenging quests. I actually found myself saying "That was a good boss!" Then I was like "What'd I just say?"

Not done yet but I'm fired up to see what comes next and how long the story goes on.

I've gotta feeling open-world games like Minecraft would get me addicted. Star Ocean: Till the End of Time is largely open-world, and -- for a plethora of other reasons -- is the greatest game I've ever played. So much to do and there's no one way to play the game (decisions!).

Never really got into video games. Just a few here and there, like my Crash Bandicoot era, Kingdom Heart II obsession, and Pokéaddiction. Last one's shamelessly still going on.

Hopefully getting into games gives me some kind of inspiration for my own. Right now it's just fun.

Day 015: Inspirations for Video Game Ideas

Today I submitted a game idea to the game development club for the "game in a month" project. It was a meme-based fighting game. It received 0 votes.

But y'know what? I'm glad it did, because even I didn't want to work on it. That goes against my, like, rule 1 of coming up with ideas: don't start something you don't believe in.

I'd like to be more creative in coming up with game ideas. I feel like it's right to "let the idea come to me" but...they don't. I feel like I have to reach for them.

Anyway, the best way to write is to read. Why shouldn't the same be true for video games? This great post says indie games are the most innovative, so starting with IGF finalists would be a good idea...

...like Minecraft...

Casual Game Design, by the way, looks like one of those sites that needs to be bookmarked.
And Game Tunnel looks inspirational too! A good place to stay "up-to-date with the latest indie games."

Day 014: Sentence Obliterated

Today, a sentence was taken from my essay criticizing this ad and was completely torn apart as the best example of what not to do.

This was the sentence:

"On the surface, the message that the ad is attempting to translate is that the effects of smoking is worse than what happened on 9/11 by orders of magnitude."

 My first thought was, "Duh! 'effects of smoking ARE worse'."

Oh no. Oh no no no, there's much more to be corrected with this sentence:

• 9/11 should be spelled out.
• "Orders of magnitude" doesn't fit the rest of the sentence.
• "On the surface" should be replaced with one strong word: "superficially."
• You don't "translate" a message, you "convey" a message.
• Conveying a message is redundant anyway. Message should be taken out.
• It needs to be less wordy.
• Just in general, this sentence is unclear.

A better way to word this sentence is:

"Superficially, the ad attempts to convey that the effects of smoking are worse than the result of the September 11 attacks."

(Ironically, translationparty.com had a bigger problem with this sentence than the original).

But this is why I love the class. There is a ton of shiz to be learned, and I'm ready to pick it up. Also, this book, On Writing Well, is on my bucket list of books to read. It seems like one of those books that you can open, read, and instantly become that much wiser.

However -- for the record -- this is not the worst sentence you'll ever come across. This sentence, originating on 4chan, is a complete train wreck of the English language:

"Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?"

Rephrased, the question reads:

"Has anyone really decided as to even go that far in wanting to do to look more like so?"

That not helping much, many people challenged themselves with deciphering the cryptic inquiry. The official consensus was:

"Has any video game company really taken such measure to make a game so realistic?"

What I take away from this: proofread.

Day 013: Oak C Program

What have I been doing that's programming-related? 

Plenty. Here's an example.

It's a C++ program that creates a pyramid of numbers.
Want it? Download it here.

It's named after the world-renowned professor.

More memes? Check 'em.

Day 012: 2 More Albums I'm Obsessed With

I enjoy the authenticity of a CD -- the case, the artwork, the CD itself, but especially all the ear-pleasing tracks you'd never dare to listen to if you downloaded from iTunes.

#1

No More Stories Are Told Today I'm Sorry They Washed Away No More Stories The World Is Grey I'm Tired Let's Wash Away - Mew

AKA No More Stories...

A friend turned me on to this indie artist. I tried it soon after, but didn't like it.

Now all the Borders are closing and everything was 70% off so I was like "Well why not get all the music for 3 bucks?" So I did.

Something about having the actual CD for the price of a sock made it sound better and better with each repeat.

I'd describe it as "surreal" and "down the rabbit hole." It encompasses you, even the minute-long tracks.

As of now, it's part of my list of albums I'm obsessed with, and it always will be. Usually I listen to the album on Grooveshark and only get the CD after I'm obsessed with it. But apparently, trying anything indie without preparation is working out.

#2
Songs for You, Truths for Me [Deluxe Edition] - James Morrison

If I never got the album We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. by Jason Mraz (y'know, the one with "I'm Yours"?) I never would've listened to "Details in the Fabric" featuring James Morrison.

So I checked out his latest album, and it's cool because he has such a distinct style. He's really singer-songwriter-esque like Jason Mraz (I need to find out what that genre influence is called).

The music is uplifting and inspiring with a symphony of instruments. I favor everything string and bass.

Each album is awe-inspiring for its own reason. A track might not be as moving outside the context of its album, which is why -- as a whole -- an album is a beautiful thing. You're not just thanking the artist by purchasing a CD: you're taking home an experience, a story.

For me, music's an important thing. If I could play a guitar, I'd be strumming away singing my favorite songs. I've never seriously considered learning, but I think I'd like to learn.

Day 011: Theatrical Nostalgia

So I got invited to this conference, just out of the blue. It was actually really prestigious. We stayed there overnight.

The whole thing was for auditions for a play. Obviously I went. I'd been hoping there was some kind of community theatre up here.

"Guys and Dolls" logo

Anyway I was practicing my song. We had to choose a song just to show off our singing ability. I picked one from a musical I'd been in -- "Guys and Dolls" -- called Guys and Dolls, Benny's part (the first guy to speak). I auditioned with this part for the musical in high school but failed miserably, never having heard the song before. But, having done a singing role in a musical since then, I had some confidence.

Then suddenly someone decides they want to steal my song. I'm all for not repeating audition songs for an ambiguous part, so I switched over to Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat, sung by Nicely Nicely Johnson. I've always loved that song.

But you know what? It'd almost be illegal to sing that song between my friend and I, the one who ended up playing Nicely Nicely. He sings it so flawlessly and so much as his own song that I can't even touch it. I envy his singing talents, and it's his fault I'm obsessed with singing (and dreams of singing apparently).

Day 010: Friday Night Magic

Magic is big at school -- it's THE mainstream card game.

To me, it's all about strategy: strategy is a challenge, so I accept. To others, it's "don't think, just do." And that's just fine.

My roommate's the dictator of the club, but that doesn't mean I have any more authority than I already have. It's a pretty open club anyway.

So every Friday night we get together and play Magic. I love it -- I've become closer to plenty of other people just by going.

I've even won a couple times -- with my roommate's deck -- but that's still a win. I'm far from making my own deck: learning the game is step one.

I've had tons of unopened, free starter decks from a library convention and only recently grabbed them while visiting my hometown. Hopefully going through each and figuring out what they can do will broaden my thinking of the game.

The game.

Day 009: The Day I Started Playing Video Games

I thought the pool table was cool, but it would make sense that playing video games would be even more involving, considering this is a video game college.

My friend's like, "Hey take this controller." And I'm like, "Hey bro, I can't do this shiz." And he's like, "Hey, I don't care."

So I took the controller and sucked it up. But that's okay because I got much more involved. We started cracking jokes and it was great.

Then we played Little Big Planet 2. Let me tell you something about that game: nothing makes sense besides the physics. Also, don't play by yourself: your impression of the game will be scarred with boredom.

Recap:
1) Playing video games with others in more involving
2) Don't play LBP alone

And that's how a post should be done. What did this have to do with time management? Writing shorter posts = more time.

Day 008: Notes on Singing

These notes are from the long ride home on Monday. I had a lot of time to think about music theories.

Theories on why I suck and how to sing better. I won't be able to test them until I go back to my hometown to use the mic and preamp.

Things I should be able to do pretty easily
1) Put the track in your range
2) Do something that will help you sing naturally
3) Sing with wide mouth
4) Breath with stomach

Things that might require getting past a mental block
5) Use strong voice/sing with energy

Things that may or may not be the right thing to do
6) Sing in your own style
7) Follow through with your lyrics
8) Never fake vibrato
9) If something feels like it's the wrong way to sing it, you're thinking too much

In fact, this whole post is probably thinking too much. I'm gonna try the tips in this post.
This post about Pat Pattison also took me on a link trip.

Day 007: Stop Procrastinating

I'm pretty sure I haven't mentioned that this one class – Cogswell XL – is the reason I'm writing this journal. You see, it's an assignment.

Last week the topic was goals. This week the topic is procrastination.

I need to work on this. The reason I procrastinate is that I'm a perfectionist. It needs to be perfect before I turn it in. This doesn't mean I start on it right away and work on it until the due date, though. Far from it.

This is the cycle I go through when something needs to be done:

1) I'll get it done ASAP

2) → Let me think about what it should look like

3) → Now that I think of it, it'd be interesting to Google this

4) → Agh, I need to get back to this, but I have no willpower

<go back to line 3 and repeat>

5) → It's too late for what I want to do / to get it all done

6) → I'll get it done in the morning so I can have the rest of the day to do whatever

Even if you have an interest in the thing you have to do, there's only so long you can go until you hit a wall and need to do something else to clear your mind.

My problem's that I have a greater quantity of interests other than what I have to do to finish it in time. It's not at all that I'm lazy. Maybe a little.

I could blame it on possible ADD but that would be passive, and in order to get things done, I need to be active.

So what's the problem? Not line 1, that's great willpower.

Something happens shortly after that: Facebook. I've closed Facebook only to literally reopen it in another tab. Facebook is habit, and time consuming because it goes straight to line 3: it has links out to tons of interesting things. Then you'll look further into that non-work subject and go on tangents and max out your interest gauge.

Now surely at random intervals this will happen: “Oh shiz I gotta get this done! Agh, but I srsly don't care about it.” WHY does that happen?

My Theory

When you're working on something and have an interest in it even though you have little or no drive/motivation to do it, you're on a roll. If you get the urge to do something habitual (e.g. Google something, check Facebook), it's because your “drive” was engaged and negative tension was created. You feel like the tension won't go away until you give in and go to Google or check Facebook. If you do, you'll break your train of thought and it'll be hard to get back to it because you have no drive to work. You may get back to it eventually but, most likely, you're done for the day, unless you get some serious willpower up.

My Solution

Don't go to Google and don't check Facebook, no matter HOW hard you want to. Get back to your assignment, take a deep breath, and replace lines 3 and below with these:

3) What if this was due 5 minutes from now?

4) I guess it'd be best to get back to this after all

5) Start working

Don't even think about lines 3 & 4. Just run them through your head, word for word. While you're running the second line through, physically scan what it is you're working on with your eyes.

What if it's too hard to resist pressing enter in the address bar?

Don't even type the URL in.

Don't even click in the address bar.

Don't even open a new tab.

Don't even bring up the browser.

Don't even stop looking at what you have to do.

Read the new lines 3 and 4.

Start working.

I don't even want to figure out what to do if I do give in, because at that point there's no turning back. I'm just gonna give my solution a test run and report back later.

Day 006: Save Me, San Francisco

Song of the day: Save Me, San Francisco - Train

It felt so good driving back out from my hometown. I drove under the "101 toward San Francisco" and picked up this energy about the Bay Area that I love.

I stuck in Train's cd and got this high. It's so beautiful driving by the ocean with the window down on a nice day.

It was a long drive home and I used a lot more gas than I did to get to my hometown (must be downhill) but arriving home (yes, home, sweet right?), it was nice to see my roommates again (one was missing but it was all the same).

I'm gonna hate switching roommates next year, but until then, I've got one roommate whose buttons I can push and two more I hope to be able to do the same with very soon.

Day 005: My Goals

I really should be writing about my own goals, and I really shouldn't be writing so much in my posts. I may lose attention.

Short, sweet, and to the point. Here we go. Nao. ("nao" should be used only in place of "right now," not "now, I'm doing this" or as replacing "at the moment." It denotes instantaneousness).

Semester goal: Finish my CMS
I'm building a content management system for websites for managing content. Joomla's okay, but it's convoluted to me. This will be a simple, barebones CMS. I'm calling it Barebones CMS.

Yearlong goal: Sing a song
When recognizable music comes on, there's always this overwhelming urge to sing it, however suckishly. Problem is, I always steal the style of the artist singing it, so my sub-goal is to find out what my own style is and sing Chasing Cars with it.

College goal: Create motion capture video game controller

Deadpool with labeled guns

I keep coming back to this idea: use 3 cameras to track 3D motion. The Kinect can't see behind you. I want to use the 3D motion data to control fighting games intuitively, so Deadpool will actually shoot if you perform the motion of popping a cap on your friend's hindquarters. I might switch this idea out.

Here's the new idea. I'm thinking glove and ankle controllers. Motion capture with multiple cameras is definitely my goal for near-perfect spatial tracking, but gamers want controllers, and it'd be more involving that way.

They're good, concrete goals. You can measure them. Notice I didn't put "become famous" or "get really smart." I could put "go to Mars" (someday...), but it's almost completely implausible right nao. I mean atm.

I feel like coming up with daily goals might help me be more productive. Like, "wake up," and "go to sleep."

Day 004: Burning Man, Costume Shops and Steampunk

Song of the day: Hey, Soul Sister - Train

Did you know? Hey, Soul Sister was based off what Pat Monahan imagined the chicks at Burning Man were like.

One of my roommates left for Burning Man yesterday. I only know about the thing because I read the Hey, Soul Sister wiki article. It sounded tight.

Burning Man's supposed to be an extraordinarily free and close community, paying with gifts, not cash.

It's very art-oriented too, which is why tons of people at Cogswell would probably die to go. It'd be cool to organize something similar that brings everyone together through arting shizz up.

Now people make "Mutant Vehicles" like this giant steampunk octopus. I'm all for steampunk, and mechanical sealife.

This was my favorite, but I highly recommend you take a moment to go on a Burning Man art-based YouTube tangent.

Dressing up is a huge thing, so I hear. So two of my roommates and I went to the local costume shop. This was one of those place out of Harry Potter where the inside is hella larger than the outside.

My Burning Man roommate didn't end up getting too creative and walked away with a purple coat to go with his aviator goggles.

I on the other hand relapsed into my old theatre-self -- which I'm okay with and wish would happen more often -- using costumes to let me be other people.

Ballyhoo & Big Top

It's all in the hat. My favorite was what I can only compare to the Ballyhoo hat, Big Top. It's amazing how you'll jump right into character, especially whilst wielding a really cat cane.

Let it be known that it's my ambition to have the adjective "cat" catch on as a word describing something cool, rad, or overwhelmingly majestic.

Anyway, it was nice being comfortable with myself for once. That why I loved theatre -- if I did anything wrong, I could blame it on the character.

As a last note, there was an entire section in the shop dedicated to steampunk. This is why I love anything by Panic! at the Disco. This is why I love pipes, gears and switches.

By Halloween, my goal is to come up with a steampunk aviator costume. And then wear it.

Day 003: Success

Song of the day: Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol

Did you know? This inspiration for this song came from the lead singer Gary's infatuation with a girl. His father told him, "You're like a dog chasing a car. You'll never catch it and you just wouldn't know what to do with it if you did." Make sense now?

My brother and I stayed up till 5 in the morning trying to sing this song. We got the Samson mic and Avid preamp (and it sounds beautiful compared to our old 1/4" crap mic) but there's one problem -- we can't sing.

Granted this isn't top of the line equipment and we ain't rock stars, but hitting the notes would be a plus.

My problem at the end of the day (night) was singing too softly. It was frustrating knowing I could sing more strongly (like in the car) but that I was holding back for some reason. Maybe because I'd rather put the mic in a stand than hold it.

Point is, there are tons of things that I want to do and projects I want to finish, but that are hard to do, giving little sense of accomplishment.

In Critical Thinking (class) the other day, we were asked to define success:

Success is the achievement of a goal that gives a feeling of accomplishment.

However, if you haven't had much success with things, not only will you have a lower self-esteem, you won't be able to have much success with achieving new goals, especially big ones.

Question is: how do we achieve big goals?
The answer: little successes.

Little successes (milestones) are the things that keep us going to achieve an ultimate goal. Happiness is your fuel, ambition is your fire. Use the happiness of little successes to fuel your ambition for big goals.

Even if it doesn't seem like very much of a challenge, doing something that's easily achievable can give you fuel (happiness). For me, that's photography; it's easy to do, and I get a feeling of success after I post a finished picture. This is a hobby.

A hobby is a goal that is easily achievable, and upon achievement gives happiness.

So have a big goal to reach for (like singing a song), but keep in mind the little things and hobbies that are easy to do and do them (like taking pictures), and use the happiness you get from them to achieve your big goal.

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. ~Albert Schweitzer

Day 002: Welcome to the Jungle

Song of the day: Welcome to the Jungle - Guns N' Roses

What do you think this song is about?

Wrong, it's about college: welcome to the jungle.

You need to do whatever you need to to survive. You need to practice responsibility and self-acceptance. Ask questions for immediate needs, and long-term plans. If you're struggling, focus on your larger goals for attending college and step up your game.

Work hard, write often, and study with a passion that's a seedling waiting to bloom.

At least that's all what the handout in English today said.

Now I'll give it that I need to practice self-acceptance, but I feel that'll come as collateral to being productive. Being productive tends to take my mind off myself (and my self-consciousness).

Also, I like the idea of seeing the jungle for the trees. Focusing on the big picture and remembering my ultimate goals will help me plan accordingly in order to achieve them.

But honestly, I haven't got the feeling that college is such a harsh place yet. Rather, it seems to be an accepting place, with much less work than that of higher-level high school classes.

I expect the work'll pile up eventually, but I think it'll be far more manageable than I'm used to, especially because I have an interest in many of these classes. It's my major after all.

Otherwise, I agree -- if problems are the trees, questions will be my sword. And I'm sure I'll survive: there's food and water in the lounge.

So, welcome to the jungle -- it's a challenge, not a life-or-death situation.

Day 001: Starting Out

Hi. My name is Andrew. I'd like to go by Arque, but we'll see how long that takes to catch on.

I just started out at Cogswell Polytechnical College, home of the dragons; you might call me a fledgling.

Taking on Software Engineering with a focus of artificial intelligence seemed like the next logical step for someone addicted to giving life to robots. Sounds pretty cool right? That's what I thought as I boasted my major at the school's game development club. I can't leave now: apparently they need programmers.

I expected college to be a prison where professors lecture at you in a room filled with dozens of others in the same boat as you. Really, this place is nothing like that -- that's what high school's for.

There are only 200 students here -- 200. That's how many kids I thought would fill a classroom. Needless to say although I'll say it anyway, Cogswellians are a tight-knit family.

Starting out sucked. I'm terrified of meeting new people to the point where I won't say anything at all and awkwardly sit alone trying to act like someone should act if they were a normal person. But really, no one here is normal; that's why we're at Cogswell.

Everyone else (or so it seems) has already accepted themselves as who they are, automatically avoiding the futility of trying to be that person with that golden personality.

I can feel myself slip between the two states of mind: between observing myself and calculating things to say, and genuinely wanting to be around others, conversing naturally. The latter feels much more right. I think it has something to do with the pool table.

Partaking in a good game of billiards has proven to be a great way to get into the right state of mind.  Everyone has the same goal -- get the balls in the holes. Nothing's ever really awkward, so it's a good time to say whatever.

I'm hoping I STAY in this state of mind, because it feels like the right place to be.
I'm hoping to make Cogswell my home.
I'm hoping become part of this family.