'Parently There was a Reason Synchro-Vox was Discredited as an Animation Technique, GO FIGURE

Painted my mouth green today to experiment with keying tools in After Effects. I was thinking something cheap and easy to produce, like Clutch Cargo, but more convincing than that because this is the future and we've got the technology for it! I ultimately just had to use masking to get what I wanted, but even what I wanted, wasn't what I'd had in mind. It um yeah.

"As far as you know..."

I think it'd rather make for a good style for, I'm thinking something slightly more surreal and/or creepy, think "Baman and Piderman" or "Salad Fingers," type of deal. And well I'd rather watch the Boss Baby than an episode of Annoying Orange, and I'd rather stick a needle into my eyeball than watch the Boss Baby, so I can't say for that, but Steve Oedekerk does some good work in this, what would you call it, genre, medium. Maybe there's a reason they leave the skin of the mouth around, but that was the exact sort of thing I was trying to avoid.

Cartoon mouths remain ideal. We can always experiment with mocap...

Fandomonium tomorrow. It's gonna cost money again, and I'm not that into it this semester if anything I'd just want to see what kind of cosplay they've got going on this semester, so I'm not sure if I'll do much more than, or even go so far as, just chilling outside of the door there.

I Just Want Your Mummy Love

I didn't realize it until this year, with Monster Trucks and Kong: Skull Island coming out, and I didn't realize it until today, with the Mummy coming out (alright, technically tomorrow, but Thursday previews meant I could catch it today yay) but I love monster movies. lovelovelovelovelove. With The Mummy out now there's only one or two films left this year I'm anticipating. There's a whole ritual built around Spider-Man, so there's strong hype for that, from me, but... this is really the film that I didn't know I'd been looking forward to, this year.

I love Tom Cruise. I love the Mummy movies. I went in wanting to love it. Didn't walk out disappointed. I'll admit that I'm probably not the most objective critic when it comes to this.

It does a few really awesome pretty interesting this that I hope other movies start following, though I can't articulate what I mean by that. I don't know, like how people weren't making Rear Window movies until Rear Window came out, that kind of thing...? There were a few, iconic-style things, and I hope this film does well enough that they become iconic, savvy?

That, and also, alongside the, my loving monster movies, thing, how dope an interconnected canon of those would be, in this day and age, is another reason I'd love for this film to do well. Dark Universe is already apparently its own like subsidy of Universal, which means that there's a lot of weight being thrown behind this, and I mean they're going ahead with it no matter what since they've already got their own Green Lantern in the form of Dracula Untold (which I didn't even realize was a mainstream picture until I read that today; it's okay I guess a little weird but it just had the feel of one of those Euro indie movies, like Troll Hunters and everything,) but like the King Arthur movie was supposed to be the first in a franchise of five or six other movies, and with that film doing so poorly... hopefully Guy Ritchie gets around to making the third Holmes movie? Also, oooh more the Man from Uncle movies please.

Anyway.

It's implied at one point- and see, see how awesome this movie is- it's implied that, though this is the first film in a new cinematic universe, the Brendan Fraser Mummy movies take place in this same chronology. Even probably the third one, which nobody seemed to enjoy except for me. I'm not sure whether the implication was meant to be subtle or not, because I'm not sure how recognizable/iconic the Book of the Dead is, but I recognized it instantly. I hope they weren't just trying to be cute...

Wait, that would mean that all of those Scorpion King movies also take place in this movie's timeline, hmm... I've only seen, like, three of those...

Trolley Trolley Trolley Get Your Quandaries Here

The philosophical quandaries, still, in my construction of morality/view of God. Is it consistent that morality is external to God but that God is omnipotent? Even if He commands us to do something previously outside the realm of morality, His commanding us to do it makes it immoral to disobey. If God's omnipotent, His commanding of us to do something inherently immoral makes that obedience moral?

Maybe. Sure. God is a conqueror, a warrior. A killer. The Lord can command Abraham to lie about his wife, he can command Peter to deny knowing him. The logic of the morality is perfectly consistent. Doesn't make my conception of God true or anything, of course, but...

One of the art night group, Lauren, made it down to BLFC last week. She's big into Kaiju apparently and that was the theme this year, so good for that. It was her first time going to a con without her parents, I believe. (Art night is on Wednesdays now to prevent scheduling conflict with the art seminars. Lauren (who is not the Greekish one) was of course not there last week, all bein' down in Reno and all, but she did get the memo in time of the changing of the schedule and thus did make it this week on the correct day.)

It fascinates me to no end how apparently reconcilable Mormonism is with the furry fandom. I've been over it before a bit, but- Lauren apparently sees no contradiction; Ellen Natalie, from my correspondence with her, sees no contradiction. Maybe I want there to be one. I myself see contradiction there. But I see contradiction in the doctrine itself, tying religion to spirituality somehow.

More moral quandaries, meanwhile: (let's say everything is the trolley problem, thus, this is the trolley problem.) Class today. The big project in Information Design class begins, and we are to have a project. I chose, well at first, Mormon perspectives and attitudes about transgender issues. But that's a problematic topic. If mishandled, it could result in people, questioning their faith or anything, when the topic's too narrow, and not balanced enough. Do I divert the trolley onto the path of a presentation about neckbeards? Or do I keep the trolley on the track, with much greater ethical rewards (educating people and making them evaluate their own attitudes) but also more bodies tied to the tracks there?

TASK Party in a week, anyway, in the Kirkham building instead of at JimJam's house, because the place was just so packed last semester's TASK party.

RCPC (Rather Cleverish Political Crud)

Sometimes I feel too clever for my own good. Can't think of any specific examples right now- alright I can think of two, but not the third one (which would actually be the second one) which I really wanted to share. Dratsville? The first and third are like political-ish though so ???, which would probably explain why I can't think of putting them anywhere like in TTDECBA or anything, plus they're political so you know ~~~ [funny warbly "so-so/I don't know" sound effect] and I'm not sure if they'd make sense to anyone else but me. 

Like the stuff with Bill Maher recently, calling himself a "house [african american type person]" which was genuinely like whoa WTH, and the stuff before that his previous controversies, like getting chummy with Milo Yanninapolis (dang I thought the spellcheck would catch me on that and tell me the correct spelling, but all it's got is "Anapolis" which I already know how to spell, thanks Google) which was apparently controversial, I just keep on flashing back to that SNL sketch from, 2004 I think, with Christopher Walken as a guest, playing a high school drama teacher whose students are putting on Grease- but he keeps on having to step in with a "whoa, whoa, whoa!" and censoring the lyrics in increasingly bizarre ways, hubba-hubba-hubba flocks! flocks! flocks! like that. So it'd go something like this:

"Go Bill Maher, he's burnin' up the quarter mile..."
"Whoa whoa whoa! Milo? Milo? Milo Yiannopoulos? do you know who that is?? Yeah? come on over here and whisper it in my ear..."

and (something along the lines of)

"you know that he ain't bigger/he's a real house nig--"
"--whoa whoa whoa! a house what?! a house what??We can't use that! That's offensive! To just about everyone!"

Something along those lines. He's keeping his job though, so the analogy (in which Christopher Walken replaces the phrase "Greased Lightning" itself for being "absolutely filthy" "in certain circles") doesn't translate all the way. 

And then there's the scene in Wonder Woman where the title character storms No Man's Land, I keep picturing her as Kylie Jenner just strutting over there and handing out Pepsi to the Germans and converting Ares with the power of soft drink and single-handedly ending WWI. So yeah there's that too.

As for the second clever thing in between those two things...

Ah, that was it. Not just clever things, but awesome things I've found around the, y'know, world or web or whatever, which are worth your time. Found a few of those. That was the second thing. Guess I could share that. Guess I could share that yesterday, which apparently didn't get a post (failed to post in Pretzelize Me, Cap'n! either. Huh.)

Pretty Good Links

A rather humorous maybe kind of sacreligious I don't know essay from Percy Bysshe Shelley. Not sure I agree with very many of his points, but it is a gem.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Prose_Works_of_Percy_Bysshe_Shelley/On_the_Devil,_and_Devils

If that didn't turn you into an atheist (or even if it did) try your hand at one (or more) of these quizzes, which test you on the internal validity of your own system of morality. Once again, I'm not sure if I believe everything they tell you when they point out exactly how logically inconsistent your ethical system is, like seriously I could go on for a whole thing why their whole premise why my logic is flawed, is flawed, but people tend to be resistant when you tell them to their face that they're totally wrong, and yeah I'm human... but it's totally on them though, it's been previously agreed that nobody's morally culpable for something out of their control, so even if Boris didn't have a choice in the assassination, he didn't have a choice not to have a choice, and he chose to kill regardless of whether his choice would have been made for him or not- pretty sure the ball's in their court on this one.

http://www.philosophyexperiments.com/

Alright here's what I'd been meaning to share anyway.

http://www.nickyee.com/index-archive.html

There's some interesting reads and plays there, including an essay on the history of the western concept of homosexuality and one on how biased so-called "personality tests" are, but what I'd like to point your attention to is the Predictive Psychology flash widget, which is actually a magic trick disguised as a different magic trick, using psychology to distract you from the psychology. It's... Just eat what we tell you to and don't question it.

Why does Ryan always seem to see through these things when I don't...

As long as I'm linking you to that Flash widget, have this page, which I've been sitting on for the better part of a decade now. It's the games page of the website of legendary Dutch screen actor Rutger Hauer. Yeah, he's got one of those.

http://www.rutgerhauer.org/games/games.php

You can play the memory match game with the objects-to-memorize-the-position-of being tiny little photographs of Rutger Hauer's face. It is as surreal as it is delightful.

On Above-Average Design

Actually might be able to make this. I mean of course I will. Design-wise, I'm doing my darndest but it's still going to come out subpar and it would even if I had the full length of the project to work on this; they say to compare your own work against professionals' instead of fellow students', but for me, I can't tell the difference, it all looks so... beyond me. 

Maybe I was a bit glib in the latest vlog (which analytics is telling me nobody actually watched, so I'm free to claim anything about it as much as I want and nobody'd be able to contradict me,) saying how relatively easy it is to get above-average design. For shirts and other pedestrian screenpress uses, perhaps. But actual design design... there's a reason it's the least stretching of all the standards, just being "above average," in the 50th percentile, instead of having to surpass any standard deviations.

Also something about how I said how relatively easy it is to be dedicated past the first standard deviation- it's true that many people probably aren't dedicated, and I don't consider myself among them, but then watching something like Jiro Dreams of Sushi, or The Social Network, true stories about people with autistic single-mindedness for greatness (Mark Zuckerberg is portrayed as a bit of a jerk, but listening to Jesse Eisenberg's interpretation of the character is enlightening)... Well, that doesn't discount the non-devotees, I s'pose.

Doughnut Phoenix

I’m probably going to need to get good at typographic hierarchy by Monday if the doughnut thing is going to be a success at all. Project 1, now completed save for its processbook, had no writing out of necessity of the assignment. This project with the doughnuts, this one has a lot of type. I had to explain my mathematical reasoning regarding how many doughnuts you can fry using only the kilocaloric energy of 100 doughnuts...

(128. In other words, frying doughnuts using doughnut power is entirely self-sustainable.)

EDIT: I redid the math, and the number of doughnuts that you can fry is closer to, 160. 160 dozen, that is. My calculations had been going off of the assumption that the oil was to be heated from a temperature of zero degrees, which is of course inaccurate. 

Here’s my logic (and you see what I mean when I say this project has a load of typography):

There is a simple mathematical formula to determine how many kilowatt hours it takes to heat any given body of oil to any given temperature in any given time. It goes: 

Gallons × Temperature Rise (°F)

/

860 × Heat-up time (hrs.)

Oil tends to have a 15 minute reheat time, to the temperature of 375° F at which doughnuts are ideally cooked. Let’s say we’ve got a 50-pound capacity fryer- 6 gallons. Heating up to 375° from a room temperature of 70° F takes 1830/215 =~8.512 kilowatt hours to heat that much oil in 15 minutes and cook the first batch of doughnuts. Doughnuts absorb up to 30% of the oil you cook them in (so 15 grams per doughnut; in 6 gallons of oil that’s 2.5 grams per gallon, which is .7th of a percent oil per batch that gets absorbed assuming a batch size of 64 doughnuts (see below.)) The readdition of room-temp oil over subsequent batches is negligible but the addition of one part room temperature doughnut to 6 parts oil is going to bring down the batch of oil 1/7th (or 14%) of the way from 375° to 70°, or 43.57°, which we’ll round up to 44° assuming the addition of that .7% oil lost due to absorption each batch. 6 gallons multiplied by a temperature rise of 44°, and a 15 minute (.25 hour) reheat time, means that it’s going to take 1.228 kwh to reheat the oil to proper re-doughnut-cooking temperatures.

A batch of 100 doughnuts has, according to Google’s estimate of a typical doughnut (going based off the low end of the scale*) and converting from kilocalories to kilowatt hours, 22.315 kilowatt hours in it- turning the fryer on with a 15 minute heatup time to get to 375° (which is about right, though some commercial fryers can get it done in two thirds of the time,) followed by reheating it subsequently over succeeding batches, means you can get a little over 12 batches of doughnuts from the kwh of the kilocaloric energy of 100 doughnuts, from room temperature. If you started off with the fryer already on at 375° f,  22.315 / 1.228 means that you can get 18 batches out of it. And that’s at the low end of the doughnut calorie estimation scale!

How much is 12-18 doughnut batches?

8 twin-sized fry baskets can fit into a 50-pound fryer- 3 each on the side fry pots, 2 in the middle; each fry basket (17 1/2" x 9 1/8" x 6") can hold 8 doughnuts, so each batch contains 64 doughnuts.**

768 doughnuts are in 12 batches, 1,152 doughnuts are in 18 batches- between the two batches are 160 dozen doughnuts. 150 dozen doughnuts a day is about average bakery output, so with 120 doughnuts left over there’s enough to take home twenty for yourself, and use the remaining hundred to power the fryer for the next day’s bake. 

I've got illustrations and a list of sources for my claims in the project itself, which should be going up to you overmorrow, over at Pretzelize Me, Cap'n!.

More Midterms Projects: Plugging and Chugging

Finished off the how-to project design today. Among the to-dos of tomorrow are getting that printed and mounted, pasting the old drafts into the process book, and meanwhile continuing the research for the visualization project: head down to Paradise Doughnuts to interview regarding the kilowatt hours required to fry doughnuts, how many doughnuts can be cooked at once, and how much oil it takes to do so; the answers I'm getting online to those questions have been kind of mealy-mouthed. (The idea is to figure out how many doughnuts can be fried using the kilocalories converted into kilowatt hours of 100 doughnuts.)

I am aware that today is national doughnut day. I'd been really hoping that there'd be some fascinating and useful doughnut facts posted up on newssites and in papers, which I'd be able to use for this project, but no dice?

(Two projects so far in information design class, create a strictly visual how-to poster (and also app,) and design an infographic detailing facts and metrics regarding anywhere from 50-100 of any chosen item, in my case doughnuts. The card tower how-to from last semester I repeated, but with completely different tack this time; I chose doughnuts instead of shoes for the 100 things project because of this Wondermark; we're not doing the LEGO visualizations  app project this semester which is a darn shame because I really liked the conceit I had last semester regarding it.)

At this rate I just may pass the class (depends on how mercifully the month-late how-to project will be graded, and also whether I do well on the other thing); whether that'll be enough to get a C average or better has yet to be seen.

Carvin' Into It

Expect Pretzelize Me Cap'n! to be getting a couple of new posts around Monday; the blog started out to show my progress in information design last semester so it's only fitting that it should do the same this semester, though (this semester's class being on-campus) it's not necessary. I would have already posted there had I, you know, completed the first assignment when it was due.

Work recidivism rate (and yes I'm making up a new definition I guess, but it fits the usage perfectly?): such-and-such a time is spent working, not all. I'd go nuts if I only worked. Nonetheless... it's looking like that's what I need to do, considering I've got two month-long projects to complete over the weekend. As long as I'm taking a break from work I should be equally productive on other non-movie things... I've got a few things in mind...

Modules 4-7... And Also 1-3

It turns out that there's a project due on Monday for Information Design class; a project on which we've been working for weeks but which I've only technically started on.

Meanwhile I need to finish off project 1 for that class.

Good thing I don't have classes on Friday or Saturday. Or Thursday afternoon past 1:45. Even then, for that class we're doing midterm critiques this week, so I'm not even sure if class'll extend that long.

There's 4 modules to complete for the project; the idea is to take a full week per module- but if I get done one per day, and squeeze in the other thing, I could have both projects completed by Monday. Phew. 

I looked up how many credits I need left to graduate; if by some miracle I actually manage to pass Information Design this time, and keep up my at-least-passing grade in Interaction Design, I'd just need one class's worth of credits to have all my required credits for my current emphasis. Not counting the internship which is also needed.

I can't imagine taking a whole semester just for one class, so... maybe there'll be something eligible this Summer for me to take? I've still got enough money to pay for a Summer tuition, I think; my GPA is slipping far enough that I'm not sure if I'll be eligible for any scholarships beyond that... but if my GPA does slip that far, it'll be because I failed these classes that I'm required to pass to put me in the position of only needing one class in the first place, so! Next few days' work, very very important, is what I'm stabbing at.

Ikthys

It's a miracle I got it compiled in time for class; I did notice the mistake in time but not in time to compile a new video. There should be a title at first, something along the lines of they expected him to be a conqueror. But (and I think I know the reason) that didn't make it into the final video. It'd take half an hour in editing and compiling time, max, in order to fix it, but then I'd have to upload a new video and decide what to do with this old one...

Based it off of Mark which ends abruptly, or at least not all the earliest manuscripts have 16:9-20. So I suppose it's fitting that it begins abruptly? Aargh I don't know; this was supposed to be a triumph but it's just another screwup. Which are fun but it must be nice to succeed once in a while...

Reconsideration of Reason of "Underwhelmed Scholastics"

I think my problem is I try too hard rather than not hard enough. And my ambitions are being punished with plummeting grade. It'd probably be helpful if I didn't procrastinate and be ambitious at the same time, of course- that's what's really being punished. Though that may be part of the ambition, letting things percolate. When I do begin projects they get done pretty quickly, and I wish I could find a jazzier way to say that, but then I lack motivation to get the project out of the way so soon because it's a featherweight. I wait till the last moment, fall behind, all my classes act like they're the only class, and ere long I get smothered under feathers. Yay.

I blame the punctual. They're the cause of all life's woes. Without punctuality, nobody would care whether things get done when they're due.

Source of problem located. Solution for interception: ???

Three Things About the Three-Day Weekend

With Memorial Day weekend here, three days no school on Monday, it's a good thing. That sentence was ill-composed but I'm keeping it. As a lesson.

No school on Monday. That means, or so it would seem, no classes. Pretty sure that logic works out. Which means there's time to get work done instead of having to go to class, by which I mean homework. But for two it also means both of the other apartment mates are apparently out of town because they can be, which means that I've got room to work on printmaking stuff- have some screens emulsing in the bathroom without fear of someone walking in on them and turning on the lights.

There's still class on Tuesday, which means that this project due on Tuesday is actually due on Tuesday and not Thursday like I'd thought. I'd... I'd prefer Thursday.

We Already Got CARRIED AWAY

Remember how I was looking for a microphone? I ordered one from the internet and it came this morning, at the same time as a certain new game console came in the mail as well. In order to I-don't-know-what-it-seemed-a-good-idea-at-the-time, with the new mic I decided to film a reaction video, to all the reaction videos I could track down, to the teaser trailer for the My Little Pony movie. Like I said, it seemed a good idea at the time.

There are almost 40 of them. I never want to see, as of now, another reaction video for the rest of my life. Never been much into reaction videos, but they really broke the mold with this one, whatever that means. Listen, I'd had something perfect to say re: me and reaction videos, but I'm not sure what it is or anything. I keep on dozing off. There is no rest, there is no sleep, there are only ponies. It's like Paprika, but with ponies, and not like Paprika at all; see what did I tell you I'm nodding off, saying things I think make sense but which apparently don't. But if they don't make sense, how did Harley Quinn beat up those dudes on the elevator in the LEGO Batman movie? Thus we know it must make sense. Nelson Malone Meets the Man from Mush-Nut. The wacky adventures of Wally McDoogle. Homer Price? Something about the Queen, seeing you and thus not assassinating you maybe having to do with Quantum, uncertainty stuff, but maybe only metaphorically? It appears that while I've been doing this, it was a secret audition with Robert Downey, Jr, and congratulations I'm a superstar. But for real though the x-acto blades that come in packs, that must be a virus because the number of blades in a pack multiplies, I mean there's more and more every year, and I forget the rest. This is just like 5 years ago, Marvel can't decide their new direction and so they just hand the whole thing off to a raccoon and that's where Rocket comes from and IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN.

Twist ending: I should sleep.

Om Shanti Om

More Bollywood! Foreign film night tonight ensured so. This week's offering was Om Shanti Om. It's 1977. Shah Rukh Khan (!) plays a minor actor (or "junior artist," as they're apparently called) named Om, who has a crush from afar on a megastar actress named Shanti. Om manages to score a night out with her, but later overhears a conversation between her and the producer of her next film, whom we'll call Mike, because that's what everyone will call him in Hollywood once he goes Hollywood, though his real name is Mukesh. So Mike, yeah? 

Turns out that Mukesh and Shanti are actually married secretly, which makes his wanting to marry the daughter of some other studio exec (and inheriting the studio for himself) kind of a big deal. This is all a big twist. Further turns out Shanti is pregnant. This is also a big twist. But we're not even halfway through the movie yet, so the spoilers ain't bad, because I haven't even gotten to the real plot yet. (Here I should mention that the film getting produced, in this film Om Shanti Om, is itself called Om Shanti Om.) Shanti wants a public wedding ceremony so that they don't have to hide the marriage anymore, and a few days later (which Om spends moping around after the news) Mike takes her to the set of Om Shanti Om, a huge ballroom constructed just for the movie which hasn't begun filming yet. We'll get married in here, underneath this chandelier, he says, but nope he's actually lying and brought her there just so he could catch the place on fire with her trapped inside. Om tries to rescue her, but is beat up by Mike's dudes, burnt badly, exploded out the window, and hit by a car rushing to the maternity ward of the hospital. Taken to the hospital himself, he dies there at the same time the baby boy is born, and is thus reincarnated as the child, who is also named Om, also played by Shah Rukh Khan, and who grows up to become a famous actor, living the dream that Om I envisioned for himself.

It's now 2007, and Om "OK" Kapoor is turning 30. He's extremely pyrophobic after his encounters in his previous life, and meanwhile receiving other mysterious flashes of his previous life, especially when they visit the burned-down studio from 30 years ago as a filming location. Also there's this crazy lady who claims to be his mother, (which is actually true because she's the mother of his previous incarnation)? His memories of his past life come to a head during the star-studded afterparty of the award ceremony he won, when he encounters Mike (back in India after spending the past 25 years in Hollywood) for the first time, and remembers all that happened and how his beloved Shanti died. Mukesh came back to India for one reason: to produce an OK movie, that is, a film starring Om Kapoor. OK agrees on one condition: the film they produce is to be a revival of the planned Om Shanti Om from 30 years ago...

From here, the plan is simple: OK Cinderellas a Shanti lookalike as his costar, so that he can Pygmalion and Vertigo her in order to Gaslamp Mike in order to Hamlet him, Something in the Air-style (or Phantom of the Opera-style, really, which they don't even try to hide.) 

Sounds like a good idea to me.

They Grabbed Him by the Drinking Fountain

See if you can make heads or tails of this Calvin and Hobbes strip I'm recreating from memory here (go on, give the old mental archives a whirl. There's probably hundreds of Calvin and Hobbes comics that you can remember without realizing it.)

CALVIN: a couple of kids got filthy rich this morning

HOBBES: really? How?

CALVIN: they grabbed him by the drinking fountain.

I'd always assumed that the kid was named Filthy for some reason and he got rich from suing them after they'd assaulted him. But I guess I've been giving it more thought- our they thought crossed my mind at least that maybe that wasn't the way it was intended. The manner of assault was bothering me- the punchline I remember very clearly. Grabbing him. So, what if his name is Filthy Rich and they "got" him by grabbing him at the drinking fountain? Got as in kidnapped or jumped or absconded with or possessed? Or maybe the two kids made money off of some song by some band, vis They Grabbed Him, by The Drinking Fountain. I just don't know. Anyone else got any theories? Maybe it's a pun based off of some regional accent I wouldn't understand; I don't know.

2017 Backlog 11/15: Boring Backlogging Details

For the first few of these, I put the time of when I was getting these up up front, but now it's just, the time it is today, right now, that defaults and I just do the date, whatever I need. I compiled the days I didn't have already, and like I'm not doing these in any particular order. Just have the date as part of the post title, made a post for each date I saw needed a backlog post, and sometimes I delete the date from the post accidentally and I have to go back and research what date it was, and... I'd be able to get in more that this much in five minutes of writing if it weren't for that. Eh.

Vlog Up

Readings on web typography in my interaction design class seem to indicate that large type is dope, and needn't feel clunky or overwhelming so long as it's laid out properly. This is the size I usually type at. Isn't this much better? Come to think of it, here it is in Arial, which is the typeface I used to use, at the same size, which makes it the same font I used to use. Font is the typeface combined with its style: for example, right now I'm using like a 16 point Arial font (picas and points are another dang thing; just fancy typographers' measurements, is what you need to know.) Right now I'm using a 16-point oblique Helvetica font. Et cetera. 

Anyway I haven't blogged in a couple of days, as of this writing, because my computer's been slow as of late- may have had something to do with compiling the latest vlog. That took up a lot of processing power. And I had to do it like three times, because the headphones I used to mix the sound with were super loud, so I mixed the sound way too quiet the first couple of times. Turning up the volume, from the previously compiled file with the too-soft sound, resulted in a lot of background hissing, so the whole thing was one big mess, but at least you can hear anything and as far as things go I suppose I'm not terribly ashamed of the final outcome. 

2017 Backlog 10/15: What I'm Doing While Doing These

I've got half an hour to make, 6, 6 posts? Which means that each post would need... 30 minutes, divided by 6, 5 minutes per post? It's exactly 11:30 right now, and I'll just be writing straight for five minutes. 

Trying to help my sister make a YouTube video compiling her Snapchats for the year (she's a great and hilarious Snapchatter, and making a best-of. Cool. Needed my expertise to attach the introductory clip, and we've been having export trouble but I've got it now I think.)

Post Time!

Apparently it's almost midterms already?, which I know for a fact must be impossible. Evidence number 1: there's just no way, man. Evidence number 2: I haven't even finished any of the first projects in my classes this semester. There's a huge difference between that and, we haven't finished any of the first projects in my classes this semester, of course, but...

I think the reason I wasn't behind in my classes the first semester is because I was doing more besides classes- extracurricular stuff. That somehow made my use of time more efficient...?