Flood!

Well, it has been quite the few couple of days. On Sunday night, Morehead experienced some pretty torrential flooding, especially my apartment complex, which was under about a foot of water. Since I am living on the second floor, the water didn’t make it up to my place, which was shockingly a bit of a concern for a moment, as the water did start to make its way upstairs. Unfortunately, my friends’ apartment flooded, and we moved all of their stuff upstairs into our apartment, but luckily most of their stuff was salvaged. The next day, we saw how incredibly damaged all of the local businesses and other houses and apartments were. One of the guys who was helping with the cleanup said that something like this hasn’t happened since 1932. Pretty crazy.

What’s worse is that this is finals weeks for the university, and friends of mine are trying to both finish exams and straighten out their living accommodations as many of them are displaced from the flood. It’s awful to see friends who should be happy that they will be graduating on Saturday, now reduced to moving their stuff into cars and using hotel rooms until they walk across the stage this weekend. Well, I guess it happened at a hard time, but at least it wasn’t at the beginning of the semester, when it could have really made people go crazy.

As for me, still no word on any of the job prospects I had, but maybe something will come across soon. Only time will tell.

Hope for a Job and Other Nonsense

I woke up this morning with an e-mail response from an application I submitted the other day, which is a rare occurrence for me. The position is at a newspaper where I’ll be designing ads, and laying out the paper. I’m definitely interested, I just hope that I get an interview soon.

In other news, I’ve been making pretty good progress on the website redesign. I’m really digging the look of the site; it’s really simple without looking amateur. The Flash elements are a little tricky to work with, and time consuming, but they look really awesome.

I’m also shocked by how quickly CS5 came out. I saw that Content Awareness video about a month ago, and my jaw pretty much dropped. It’s a little daunting, considering that I felt like CS4 didn’t come out that long ago, but it has been about two years, so I can’t complain all that much. I also checked price, and it looks like it’s going to cost around 900 to upgrade all my software. I’m definitely going to upgrade Photoshop, but I haven’t seen enough of the other programs to make a good judgement call.

The problem with my blogging, aside from it being inconsistent, is that I don’t have a central theme to talk about. It’s pretty much whatever is on my mind, much like a journal, which is nice and all, but isn’t exactly all that thrilling. I suppose I could focus on writing reviews as I did in the past, I enjoyed those, but I kinda like writing without limits. Well, I’m sure when my life gets supremely awesome and interesting (which will no doubt happen!), this blog will find its focus.

Neil Gaiman

I was privileged enough to sit in at a telecasted conference with renowned fiction writer Neil Gaiman, who wrote Coraline, Stardust, American Gods, and The Sandman series. Mr. Gaiman spoke regarding Libraries, and their importance in Democracy. It was really interesting to hear about Neil’s experience in school in Sussex, where he became enthralled with The Lord of the Rings books. He mentioned that his school library only had The Fellowship of the Ring, and the Two Towers, but not Return of the King. Regardless, he reread those two books constantly, enjoying them tremendously. However, he had won a school contest later on during his high school career, and had earned the privilege to ask for any book to be included in the school library. Naturally, he chose Return of the King to see how it ended. I thought that was a great anecdote on how if you’re passionate about something enough, eventually it will pay off.
Also, another great aspect of the conference was when he talked about his writing and creative process. He said that he uses genre in his writing, in the same fashion as a chef would use a certain type of spice. I thought this was really a profound statement regarding creative arts, not just solely writing. People can combine genres and styles and sometimes it makes a unique and great blend, while other times they simply just don’t go together.
It was just great to hear a great author speak about his work, his philosophies, and in general his viewpoints on various aspects of society.

Graphic Design Update

I’ve been a bit busy with a few different projects, but fortunately, I think I’m going to finally be getting a freelance project that will be fairly in depth, and a good piece to add to my portfolio. I will be creating a fully functional website from scratch for Advantage Modular, a rapidly expanding housing company in Upstate New York. It’s going to definitely be a challenge with all of the different components I’ll need to develop, design and implement perfectly, but I’m looking forward to testing my abilities as a designer.

Also, I’ve decided that my current website should get an overhaul. I think that while my fully interactive Flash online portfolio serves it’s purpose, it might be too large of a file for potential employers to sit through and wait to load. I’ve tried loading the page on other computers besides my own, and noticed that it takes upwards of a minute to initialize. It may not seem like much, but to the busy individual I send to link to, it’s time their losing looking at a loading screen. I’ve got a good idea for the redesign, which will still incorporate some Flash elements, but it’ll be built in CSS/HTML. Hopefully, in the next few weeks, I’ll be able to throw up a working beta version to my domain.

AutoPager

So, I was on Mozilla's website last night, and I noticed Firefox had a new plug-in called AutoPager, that supposedly loaded the next sequential web pages immediately below whatever was currently on your screen. Sounds complicated, I know, but think about it this way: If you were on a message board, and a discussion went on for several pages, what AutoPager does is loads those websites below one another, so all you have to do is scroll down, without clicking around trying to find the next page. I was on Google Images looking for some pictures to put into my restaurant website for my web design class, and I could simply scroll down and see all these images at once, without having to click left and right trying to find the right one. This is a great plug-in, and I can imagine that it will become a standard in web browsing in a few months.
So far, the only problems I've encountered have been AutoPager getting confused and continually loading the same page over and over again below it, but usually this occurs in less trafficked sites.
This might seem very banal, but I think it has saved me a great deal of time clicking the "next" button on various websites. Definitely worth trying.

Summer Semester Part I

Summer courses aren't too bad, I just have two this month: A drawing class and science. Even though I have never excelled in science, I was pleased to see high grades on my first couple of assignments. Hopefully, the course won't get too difficult. The only problem I've got with the drawing is that we're using other materials besides pencils and pens. I thought the whole point of drawing was to draw, not to use India Ink to paint washes and what not. Nevertheless, it's still a pretty good class otherwise.
Oh, and I finally bought Grant Morrison's Run on X-men on eBay. I've been meaning to obtain these stories for a while now, but they're out of print. It was collected in three separate hard covers, as well as one massive omnibus with everything in it. I think Marvel has been releasing paperback editions based on the three hardcovers recently, but they're about 40 bucks each, almost as much as the out of print hardcovers. Not really worth it, if you ask me.
Anyway, back to what I was saying, I got all 40 original comics, which I would think would be more expensive than the collected versions, since they're the original medium in which the stories were printed, but I noticed that it wasn't the case. I haven't seen the giant Omnibus Hardcover Edition go for less than $150.00, and if it's sealed, it's somewhere in the 300 dollar range. That's crazy.
I guess it means that the run is really good, if it's selling for so much, and I'm looking foreword to reading it.

Review: Rock Band 2

I've been into the "Music Game" genre ever since Karaoke Revolution was released, and after purchasing Guitar Hero II, I felt that it would be neat to combine the two games to form a sort of rock star simulation. Luckily, it seems like video game developer Harmonix thought similarily, as the first Rock Band was released in late 2007, but at a near 200 dollar price tag, it seemed a little steep for just one game. However, after playing it at friend's houses, I began to see the appeal of the game. It was most likely the cohesion of all the instruments, being played together that somewhat immersed me into feeling as though I were playing for a live audience, even if I was holding a guitar that looked like something out of a Fisher Price catalog. Needless to say, I was much more apt to purchase the next upgraded version when it came along.
Cue yesterday. I bought the full game, complete with microphone, guitar and drum kit, and prepared to begin the onslaught of rock that was to ensue.

Immediately when you start up the game, you are treated to an over the top opening cinematic, where two bands battled atop of two cars, while singing Cheap Trick's "Hello There." It truly sets the tone for the game. Very enjoyable to watch.

I loved the layout of the game. It was non-linear, meaning that I was not required to play any specific songs in any specific order. I could create my own setlists, or have the computer randomly select them. It was a thrill attempting to play songs that were much more difficult and fast, but knowing that I could at least halfway keep up with them made me feel like nothing short of a rock star, as cliche as that may sound.

I'll sum up a few of my favorite features of the game in list:
1. Tour Mode. You are able to play in different venues, by playing different setlists, and furthering your fame by collecting money and fans. Occasionally, you will encounter a challenge, (could be to play a hard song at the end of a set, or achieving a certain score) which adds a new dimension of difficulty to the game.
2. Guitar Effects. When you set off your "Star Power", which doubles your points for a short time, you are also able to change how your guitar sounds. You can make it sound like a "Wah-Wah", muted, distored, or a variety of other sounds while you play. It adds a certain element of immersion, so that you are able to continue to feel like a professional guitarist.
3. Drumming in General. I am not very good at it, but drumming is fun. Trying to keep the beat, while occasionally having a "Neil Pert"-esque solo every once in a while is incredibly satisfying. I'm sure as the difficulty increases, the enjoyment of this will also.

Another thing that impresses me with Harmonix is the inclusion of Downloadable Content. Players are able to purchase single songs for a mere $1.99, and add them to your library. This allows for a fully customizable experience for the player, and for them to enjoy the songs they love, without having to wade through the ones they don't like. It's a great idea, and considering they release new content every week, it should increase the longevity of the game as well.

Another aspect that the game includes is the ability to play with other gamers online. I've never really been much for competitive gaming, but it is a neat feature that works well. It's somewhat humbling to play online, because as decent as I believe I am, there's always a 13 year old who totally schools me.

It seems like Harmonix is doing everything in their power to treat the customer to a fun rock star simulation, by producing an immersive, technically skilled, and customizable experience for everyone who enjoys video games and music.