The Final Post

Well, this semester has gone by in a flash as usual. Therefore, here is my final post.

Week’s suggested prompt: “Describe your favorite method of procrastination”.

My favorite way is being laid flat-out on the couch, cold drink sitting at the coffee table in front of me (usually iced tea or water) while watching whatever program is suiting my fancy at 7 pm: which is Jeopardy unless there is a game on, where I then flip back and forth in between.

Yeah, I’m an avid Jeopardy viewer. Sue me. It’s a huge goal for me to get on the show before Alex Trebek retires (which, sadly, is not too far away, so time is running out).

Signing out for the last time. Its been a heck of a semester.

The Social Media Influence “Family Tree”

For my tree, I decided to go with the account from one of my favorite YouTube channels, Pittsburgh Dad.  The show features the title character who lives and breathes Pittsburgh culture, especially when it comes to his thick Pittsburghese accent and his passion for the Steelers, Pirates, and Penguins, and is constantly annoyed by his family (mostly his children).

Since the character (and as a result, the show’s Facebook account) is so passionate about his sports teams, I found it fitting to place all 3 teams as being his primary influences.  In turn, the Pirates’, Penguins’, and Steelers’ social media accounts are influenced by pages of their respected leagues (NFL, NHL, and MLB), sports media outlets (ESPN, NHL on NBCSN, Sports Illustrated), players’ unions (NHLPA and NFLPA), and of their players (Antonio Brown).

Interactive Narrative

For my interactive narrative project, I teamed up with Alecia where we put together a text-based exploration game using Inklewriter.  The game, “The Room” (Oh, hi Mark), is an escape game where the user must navigate through the prompted options in order to find the key to escape.

http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/mgjn

NOTE: You must create and login to an Inklewriter account in order to play the game (Sorry, this is not ‘Nam, this is Inklewriter; there are rules).

As for my weekly blog post, today I am feeling quite exhausted from staying up due to homework and watching the black and gold take home not one, but BOTH victories last night.

I have mixed feelings about the cable cam usage.  While it is a fresh idea with an angle that may be quite familiar with Madden players, it was generally seen as “weird” by everyone else.  Yes, it may be better after one gets used to it, but I still think that there are some kinks that need to be worked out.  For me, I felt the camera felt further away from the action as the play progressed; perhaps quicker zooming may be able to alleviate this issue.  But hey, that’s just me.

Still hoping Haley either gets put back up in the press box, or canned (preferably the latter).

Mixtapes N’at

This week’s Kleon prompt that I did was to “Make a mixtape for someone who doesn’t know you.”  By that, my assumption was to make one that I feel best describes who I am.

Me, I overall consider myself a fan of mostly rock but I’ve added some rap to the mix over the past recent years.  My mixtape consists of a variety from Metallica, to Weird Al, to Kendrick, to The Clarks.  Though my tastes have not, and will never EVER include COUNTRY (or at least, the bullshit that today’s society calls “country”; Johnny Cash would be pissed). Sorry [not] sorry to anyone whose feelings were crushed with that previous sentence.

And yes, I still listen to Weird Al. Sue me.

Now, how could I turn this into an interactive narrative?  What I would do is create a playlist (Spotify comes to mind here) on my website where one can click on a song to not only hear it, but to also read a brief paragraph as to why.

For example, for “We Dem Boyz” by Wiz Khalifa, I chose that because of it’s connection to a fantasy of mine; playing for the Buccos.  If – by any weird miracle or happenstance that has slimmer odds than me becoming President – I were to become a Buc, that would be my walk-up song as it would help me send the message that I’m from the area (like Wiz) and also the song just has that “walk-upable” feel to it.

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Project and Prompt

LOCATION NARRATIVE LINK: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1rNjawiGxt4MvekDUS6RqcXEUyjaGHVVN8W-Av8_NHfA/edit?usp=sharing

Now, onto this week’s prompt: What do you do in private that could be done in public? Why don’t you?”

The one activity that pops into my mind is listening to music.  So why not in public?

Music to me is an expression of both my personality and moods.  Being mostly an introvert, I naturally have anxiety about expressing myself to others.  If I am in private, I can be free to express myself (I believe that expressing oneself physically could very well be considered a necessary human function) without any worry or judgement.  As I have plenty of music guilty pleasures (Weird Al is probably my biggest one), I have very good reason for my anxiety!

Pittsburgh withdrawl

As just about everyone who has ever met me knows, I have a die-hard passion for my Penguins, Pirates, and Steelers.  While I do love my teams very much, I often extend my love to the city as a whole.  I am in the city on a somewhat regular basis (usually at least once a month), as I frequent games there and also have friends who live there. This weekend is roughly that one month mark since I’ve last been there, and I miss it already.

I plan on being back on November 7th as I will be seeing the Pens take on the Coyotes, but it couldn’t come any sooner!  Like some of my friends have already done, I am seriously considering moving to the ‘Burgh after graduation (but on one condition, that I have at least one friend to be roommates with).  Hopefully a UPJ degree in comm. shouldn’t make landing a job in the area too difficult.

To help ease my pain, I should consider making a food run with someone out there; I haven’t been to Ramen Bar in a while (if you haven’t been there, just go; don’t even question yourself, I promise), and the weather is getting chillier and chillier, that would be a pretty good trip in my book.

Don’t worry, Pittsburgh.  I’ll be back before you even know it.

A Few Things (remix project included)

To start off on this post, a suggested prompt for this week was titled, “Make a collage from items in your wastebasket”.  For that I stared at the trashcan in my bedroom and wondered what I could use (that wasn’t covered in melted slush syrup from the Icee pouch that sat on top of the can).  Much to my [thankful] surprise, I gathered enough material to work with that wasn’t covered in red, cherry-flavored goop.  From that I put together the adhesive cover from a name tag (from a job fair from a few weeks ago, an Altoona Curve coupon, a Sweet Frog coupon, a Nestle water label, and a Ricola wrapper.  A little trash plus clear packing tape got me almost 2 pages worth of collage. 

Does that make me a qualified artist now??

Now, onto the remix narrative.

For that I decided to remix scenes from famous movies and switch out a famous line for that of another (with mixed results).  In my project one can find elements from classics such as Star Wars Episode V, 22 Jump Street, Happy Gilmore, Napoleon Dynamite, Scarface, The Big Lebowski, Borat, Batman (Tim Burton), The Shining, and Pulp Fiction.

Link Below:

The bad luck came sprinting out of the gates

As you can probably tell, today is Friday the 13th.  And right off the bat, I’m stuck with my second cold within the past 3 weeks.  Off to just a fantastic start.  Then I forgot that I have to work at 2 today. Greattttttttt. At least today is pay day.

Now, I consider myself to be at least somewhat superstitious; I’m no Wade Boggs or Nomar Garciaparra by any stretch but I’m always extra careful with my Terrible Towel (ask the Titans as to how they learned the hard way) and I tend to make sure to throw some salt over my left shoulder if I wind up being a klutz in the kitchen.

So, why me? Am I like the chosen one or something?  Can I just go one stretch without the Pens or the Steelers losing winnable games while I can breathe through both of my nostrils? Is that too much to ask for?

I guess so.