In Memorium Canum

Last month, my brother and I were able to work on a project together, which is always a pleasure. What's even better, it was a concrete, physical, tangible project that we made with our own hands. I had been craving manual labor for a worthwhile cause, and this one was the perfect chance.

Vid: A Country Drive

More fun with green screening, and this time starring my adorable daughter! This time my brother and I made some breakthroughs with lighting, which is truly a key factor in whether a green screened video looks any good.

Tristan's Diary

This started out as an idea I had for my first child, and then I completely forgot to do it. I didn't do it for my second child because of his birth defect that ended up taking his life, so I dug up the idea for our third child, Tristan, who was born a month ago. I thought it would be fun to see the world through a child's eyes—to think about how an outsider who comes to earth and learns about things like physics, bodily functions, communication, etc. would react. I was especially looking forward to writing about kid logic from a kid's point of view—for example, "I think I have made a breakthrough speaking with the giants who care for me. I realize that they seem to communicate using mouth noises. I attempted to communicate in this fashion today, but they did not seem to understand. Apparently, there are some rules involved with the types of mouth sounds made."

Unfortunately, as I soon found out, the very nature of this project makes it too hard to keep up. There are simply too many things a new baby experiences to write down. Besides simple things like light, sound, and dry air, there are things like sensations, pain, color, gravity, smell, and all kinds of other crazy things we take for granted every second of our existence.

Have Video Games reached their Peak?

There's a point where "flashier" is too flashy.

My brother recently got the new Super Smash Bros. game for Wii-U (I still can't believe that's its name... I was so hoping for something like Super Smash Bros. Onslaught or something), and I realized something interesting and odd the months and weeks before it came out, as well as the hour or two that I played it—I wasn't excited for it. It seemed to me that all the anticipation of Smash Bros. Brawl that I had experienced after high school had used up my excitement for Smash Bros. games entirely. It didn't matter if they had 15 new characters in this new game or 30, or even if they would keep adding new characters forever. It felt like the game was superfluous and that no amount of new features or improved graphics would ever improve on the perfection that was Brawl.

Vid: Monstrosity

Still not quite out of my project funk, but this alleviated the boredom somewhat. I got a green screen for my birthday and took it out for a test drive.

Discouragement

I've never actually used this blog as a journal before, besides a few select entries and updates. However, I feel like I need to get some feelings out about values that Pretzel Lectern represents, like my projects, emotions, and accomplishments, so I figure this is the best way. I also haven't updated nearly as often as I hoped. Which actually brings me to the reason I'm writing: I'm discouraged.

Salt Halt / Projectpalooza complete!

Well, the last month was spent avoiding salt as much as possible. I did have nachos once, and I did have some lightly salted peanuts, but besides that, I did my best! It wasn't quite as eventful as I thought it would be. I didn't feel that much different healthwise. But I did learn that you really don't need as much salt in your diet as you think.