Regarding Final Presentations

There were several final presentations that I thought were very good, but I must say that my favorite one of the final presentations was the Gorilla advertising that Evan did. It was very entertaining and also quite effective. I'll certainly remember it for a long time, and I would have to think that so will every one else in class.

FInal Project

For my final project, I researched abstract art, in particular Picasso. I looked at a lot of his works and tried to create something that I felt represented the genre rather well. However, I tried to create a piece that incorparated my knowledge of new media elements. So I used Illustrator to create my piece, and I'll explain in class as to how my piece came about.

Last class

I thought that the presentations last week went rather well, and I feel that it would be pretty cool to have had something to do with generating new ideas in how the department decides to promote the program. Of course, there is always room for improvement, but I will stick with the group in saying that the term, "new media," should continue to be the main term used when referencing our program.

My completely original idea. (Kind of)

I've tried to come up with an idea that has never been done before, and found little inspiration, but I think that I may have finally came up with something that hasn't been done before. It came to me when I was serving tables at Olive Garden this weekend. It is somewhat similar to a concept from the Jetsons, but different enough that I feel that it is original. The idea is to have fully interactive menus at tables in restaurants, such that guests would be able to see a 3D rendering of a menu item complete with smells by simply selecting it off of the menu, and if they decide that they want their selection, then they would be able to instantly get their order teleported to the table. This would eleminate the need for servers, but also relieve them from having to deal with cranky, pissy, and frankly rude guests on a daily basis. I feel that this idea is different from the Jetsons concept because in the show, the food was delivered via tubes similar to the ones in the bank drive-through lane, not teleported. Of course this means that the concept of teleportation would have to be realized to perfection before this concept could be brought to fruition, in order for the food to arrive at the table in a manner similar to what the menu displayed. But then again, if teleportation of food is possible, then what is really the point in having a restaurant where people can actually go sit and eat, why not just have restaurants that teleport food to people's houses, which leaves the restaurants there merely to offer the masses different selections of food in the first place?

Grave of the Fireflies

The feeling that I got from watching the movie, "Grave of the Fireflies," was a rather depressing one. That being mainly because of the story of the two children in the movie, and the fact that their story was most likely not the only one of its kind in Japan during that time. However, I did find some nice points to dwell on after thinking further about the movie, such as the love that the brother had for his sister, and how hard he tried to take care of her. Of course this becomes sad if one considers the outcome and how futile all of his efforts were in the end, but if one sticks with the main body of the movie, then at least a little cheer can be retained. But I am happy that I have had the chance to see this movie, since it gave me a perspective on the whole situation of the later parts of WWII that I didn't have before.

Pill bottle Project

For this assignment, which entailed that I come up with a completely new use for the pill bottles, I was left kind of stumped. But then I finally came up with an idea, inspired by the discussion in class last week. I made a pair of glasses that allow me to see through the eyes of a pill-head.

Midterm Exam

So far in this class, I feel that I have learned a fair deal about being creative, how to find creativity where I think there may be none, but I have wondered how we are going to do anything with it since we rarely have any assignments to do. But as far as how I approach assignments now as compared to the beginning of the semester, I now know that when I get stuck trying to come up with a creative way to approach an assignment, I  have several different ways of trying to look at the assignment itself which will most likely yield a good approach.

Final project scope

The project that I picked to shave down to a somewhat reasonable scope from last class is the new media parade project. I think that if gone about in a legal fashion, the project might actually be somewhat feasible. For instance, if a permit was acquired, and the pants cannons aimed not at people's heads, then lawsuits could be avoided. Also, the cars following eachother with a projector and another with a screen showing new media artwork is a good idea, just fitting it into a budget will be the tricky part. But really I think that the best idea might be to make the entire parade in digital format following the original project scope. It would be possible to do this in Second Life, and after creation the parade could continue parading about the world in Second Life with updates being added as the creators and/or other New Media patrons see fit.

Bliss

What I chose to do for my bliss assignment is the only thing that seems to put me in a great mood no matter what that the day has decided to throw at me. That is to play music. Playing music makes me feel wonderful in a way that is hard to describe, but I'll do my best. It allows me to go into a zone, in a sense, where everything else is forgotten, and I am only concious of the sounds that I am creating. And because I have finally reached the point where I can really let loose and play what I am feeling and hearing in my head, I often find myself completely oblivious of my surroundings, unless I am trying to play along with something or someone else. My greatest wish would be to make money at playing music, because then I could devote a significantly larger portion of my time to doing what makes me feel the best that I can feel.

We don't know bleep

I found that this movie, though kind of all over the place, expressed a sentiment that I have had for many years. This being that despite all of humanities successes and advancements in science, philosophy, and investigations into religion, we still don't really know anything. One discussion that I always liked to bring up to display this idea is that there is still a debate whether we are the only beings in the universe. After all, we are so far from being able to look into the deep realms of space, much less actually going there, but somehow there are people that are convinced that we are the only intelligent beings in the universe. How can we prove that? That's why I found this movie to be interesting.

I'm getting the sense that...Day7

The sense that I'm going to write about today is a possible seventh sense. I don't really know what to say about the existance or non-existance of a seventh sense, but the one idea that I can think of at least in my case is that I feel a presence of oncoming doom lurking behind me all the time. I attribute this to the fact that I have so many things going on, so many balls that I am trying to juggle and keep in the air, that I feel as if they could all come crashing down at any moment. This feeling has gotten worse lately, for I have been engaged in this juggling act for number of years now, and I think that my luck may possibly be running out.

I'm getting the sense that...Day6

The sense that I am going to write about today is the famed sixth sense, which I am not sure whether it exists or not. The only thing that I could find that somewhat fits the category is that when I was at work I had an experience which was very familiar. It was a deja-vu of the exact location of certain elements all around me for that 5 second span or so. Other elements that also add to the effect is that I knew what a person was going to say before they said it, and how and where people were going to move for just those few seconds. I'm not sure where these deja-vu's come from, but I have them every once in a while, and they always kind of creep me out.

I'm getting the sense that...Day5

The sense that I'm going to write about today is the final one of the five, smell. I spent the whole day trying to figure out what the smell of locations where I normally am not aware of the smell, smell like. It turned out to be a very hard task, as there is really no smell to be found in locations such as this. But finally I came to the conclusion that the smells of these types of places are more akin to a clean, sterile smell. This made me ponder how we have gotten so used to smells like this that we actually don't pay attention to them anymore. I began to wonder what a person from say 100 years ago would think of the smells of any one of these places since most locations back then didn't have this sterile property to them, and vice-versa, what would we think of the smells of locations back then with our senses of smell that are so used to things smelling good?

I'm getting the sense that...Day4

The next sense that I am going to write about is touch. It actually came to me pretty early in the day this time. It happened after I had fed my daughters lunch, and they were running around and playing while I was getting to the task of cleaning up after them as I have done a million times before. It hit me when I was wiping off their highchairs, and the remnants of their food were hitting the skin on my hand. Normally I just clean up the mess and don't give it a second thought, but it just hit me that, "You know, this is kind of disgusting." They had eaten bananas and sandwiches, but it was really the bananas that made that thought go home. It's funny that when you clean up after your kids it's just part of the day, you get so used to cleaning up nasty messes that you tend to forget that sometimes the mess is kind of gross.

I'm getting the sense that...Day3

The sense that I am going to write about today is sight. The whole day went along as usual, and I was searching for something of note to use for my experience with sight for the day. It took basically the entire day until I had picked up my kids, fed them, and was taking them for a walk around my neighborhood to let them burn off some steam before their bedtime. Then it hit me, as we were walking down the sidewalk, my daughter Kendra was forging ahead like she always does when I called to her to wait for me so she doesn't get too far ahead. When she stopped and turned back to look at me, the image of her standing there with the sun going down behind her struck me in a way that I can't really describe. But it certainly was a special moment for me and I will remember it for a long time to come.

I'm getting the sense that...Day2

The sense that I am going to write about this time is taste. I found that the next day after spending a fair portion of the night at a bar smoking and having a couple of drinks, I awoke with this horrid taste in my mouth that can only be described with one word-disgusting. It actually caused me to get out of bed just to brush my teeth.

I'm getting the sense that...Day1

The first sense that I am going to write about is hearing. I normally just listen to things without giving them too much thought, but when I left school I went to a bar to host an open mic jam, and the moment where I really had an interesting experience was playing with this individual. He was a lone musician who wanted me to back him up by playing lead with him, and its interesting to think back and realize that I completely lost touch with all of my other senses when playing lead with him. I was only aware of the sounds of the music and my place within them, as I improvised to play along with him.

What if put to life(kind of)

The what if question that I chose to do came from Surrogate, and it was- What if cannibalism was normal and eating other things other than human flesh taboo? I tried to make an image that would represent that, but was unable to recreate the image I saw in my head.

Reflections on Newspaper assignment

For the newspaper assignment, I chose to take the page of comics that I had picked up and read it while I ate my lunch, pork chops and apple sauce. Sadly, I only put my pork chops in the microvave for about 1 minute, but it was enough to burn one of them on the side. It was still good, but what made it even better was the Hagar the Horrible comic I was reading while I ate. It was about how Hagar had stuck around a bar playing darts or something, he won first prize and was bragging to his wife about it. The funny part though was that she said great job winning, but you are 3 hours late for dinner. I found it ironic that the first comic that I read was about food, while I was eating food. I reminded me of how Beth kept talking about how everything is joined together and somehow always comes full circle.

Reflections and 50 what ifs

I thought that the last class was quite interesting, as many members of the class that normally remain quiet, including me, decided to speak up and voice their opinions of some of the issues that we covered. Honestly, the main thing that I can remember from class is that everyone seems to be in agreement that the egg discussions need to end, and also that the new Metallica album is only half good, which is still far superior to the St. Anger release. I look forward to seeing what this week has to offer as far as out-there discussions and partaking myself.

Here's my 50 what if questions.

1. What if the sky wasn't blue?

2. What if there was one universal language?

3. What if birds couldn't fly?

4. What if humans had never been inspired to fly since birds didn't fly?

5. What if America was never discovered?

6. What if the seasons didn't change?

7. What if water wasn't wet?

8. What if there was world peace?

9. What if the Mormons are right?

10. What if men gave birth?

11. What if fish couldn't swim?

12. What if the Nazi's won?

13. What if Hendrix didn't die?

14. What if man never walked the Earth?

15. What if you could turn back time?

16. What if apes ruled the world?

17. What if we are descended from apes?

18. What if the grass wasn't green?

19. What if people didn't wear clothes?

20. What if there were no rules?

21. What if fairy tales were true?

22. What if we really are the only intelligent beings in the universe?

23. What if Martin Luther never came up with the Ten thesis?

24. What if babies could speak at birth?

25. WHat if music never existed?

26. What if independent thought never existed?

27. What if the cotton gin was never invented?

28. What if pain was pleasure?

29. What if we were all the same sex?

30. What if we didn't have an energy crisis?

31. What if I choose not to complete this assignment?

32. What if the Colts won today?

33. What if fire didn't burn?

34. What if pigs weren't so tasty?

35. What if the moon was really made of cheese?

36. What if hell froze over?

37. What if there was no disease?

38. What if Eastasia vs. Eurasia is really going on?

39. What if there was no gravity?

40. What if your shit didn't stink?

41. What if we pooped out of our mouths?

42. What if there were no forks in the road?

43. What if art wasn't subjective?

44. What if Al Gore really did invent the internet?

45. What if there was no Oprah?

46. What if Old Yeller made it through?

47. What if everything we do is for nothing?

48. What if AIDS was airborne?

49. What if the remaining 90% of our brains would allow for telepathic or psychic abilities?

50. What if Star Wars Episode 1-3 didn't suck? 

Favorite egg assignment

My favorite, and also most memorable, egg assignment was the one where the egg was in a video telling a childrens' story. It reminded me of the type of material that you would find in Adult Swim, and it was certainly as crazy as most of the things that are shown there. I thought that the idea was incredibly original, and could easily slide in to a show such as Robot Chicken, it's just too bad that the egg is now destroyed and there will not be any sequels.

Idea of Time

I thought about this assignment of creating something that relays a concept of time, and the idea that finally came to me was to create an image that demonstrates how we get so wrapped up in our schedules, and living according to what time it is every day, that it consumes our entire existance.

Bible Dipping

My experience with bible dipping came from a book that I haven't read in a while called, "Snow Crash," a book about a crazy futuristic world. The page that I happened to open was about the Deliverator, specifically about his car, which apparantly has enough horsepower to launch a pound of bacon to the moon. I began to ponder that thought, what amount of force would it take to lauch a pound of bacon to the moon, and why would one do such a thing in the first place? Could it be that there are people who still believe that there are lifeforms on the moon, perhaps the famed man on the moon himself, and that they would like a pound of bacon every once in a while? Or is it deeper than that, maybe these people who most would deem crazy know something that I do not, that there really is a man on the moon, and we must blast a pound of bacon his way every so often to avoid his rath? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I know that every time I look at the moon my mind begins to wander along these lines and suddenly I feel the craving for some bacon.

The Egg Experience

This is the story of how an egg changed the way I look upon the world. It began when I recieved an egg at the end of class. It's name was Roy, I found out, and soon enough we were the best of friends. I felt that he was making incredible progress growing as fast as he was, and so after twenty minutes I felt it was time for Roy to leave the nest. So I placed him on a window seal and went to class eagerly anticipating the stories Roy would tell me once I returned. However, when I came back, Roy was on his death bed. It seems that he couldn't take life without me sitting there on the window seal, and so he began to contemplate what drove Humpty Dumpty to leap to his demise from that wall he sat upon, much as Roy was now doing. This train of thinking turned out to be too much for Roy, and so he finally decided to follow the path of Humpty, and end his suffering. This he told me before he faded away, shortly after I came back from class.