New Website - Big City Burgers & Atomic Wings

As you may know already I design websites for a variety of different businesses.  The most recent website I had the pleasure of creating was the Big City Burgers & Atomic Wings website.  They have delicious wings and wing eating contests.  The burgers, although I have yet to try one, I have heard are very good as well.  So take a look at their website and if you are in the area of Westhampton Beach stop on in and have a bite to eat! :)

Sad Little Men - Samuel Bennett

I think it's important to showcase the impressive work of my peers,  especially those who I have known for as long as Sam Bennett.

Last week I had the pleasure of watching Samuel Aaron Bennett's newest film on YouTube.  A short film called Sad Little Men.  I set my expectations high, as I have always been a fan of his work and knew going into it that I would enjoy it.  Sad Little Men was utterly brilliant.  The cinematography was absolutely stunning and the score was beautifully written.  Now I am no film connoisseur, but I can tell when something just looks and sounds "right." Everything technical about the film to me was perfect.  My only complaint was the length. The story felt rushed and I think it needed to unfold in a more gradual manner.  It was in no doubt compelling, but in my opinion this film could have easily been a full length motion picture.  I thought the story was so vast to be crammed into such a short timeline.  Anyway, I am sure there are several reasons for this and regardless the film is definitely worth watching.  Sam Bennett is an incredible writer, director, and composer.  So if you haven't had the chance to see any of Sam's work yet, take a look now and make sure you check out his other work on his YouTube channel:

Sad Little Men
Directed, Written, Scored, Shot & Edited by Samuel Aaron Bennett.
Starring Jason Ralph & Will Whatley.
Sound Design by Brian Crimmins.
Produced by Dylan Steinberg.

*View the film in 1080p for the best quality*

NEGATIVE

Hey everyone!  I recently have been working on a new drawing.  I actually finished it quite a while ago, but only recently got it onto the computer.  I'm going to eventually colour it, but for now I'd like you all to check out the black and white version.  Hopefully you all enjoy it!

:)

Hurricane Irene

WOW! It has been practically 6 months since I have posted and I think it is about time I start again.  Since graduating Purchase College in May, I've been super busy, started a ton of new projects, but have yet to finish any of them.  In the mean time here's a few photos I took after Hurricane Irene out east on Long Island.

Hope you all enjoy the pictures for now.  Soon I will have my new website up and running, so check back for that :)

S.A.M.I.A. - Motor Diagram

Here is a diagram of how the motors for S.A.M.I.A. (Sound Activated Motor Ink Art) were constructed.

Alien Part III

Since my partner for Cross-Cultural Video dropped out I paired with Jared to make a third video to his topic Alien.  Let me know if you like it!



Thanks!!

New Media Senior Show Website

Hey!  If you haven't checked out the New Media Senior Show website yet, you should definitely get on that.  Force_Quit!

May the Force_Quit be with you!

Noise

I had to make a video for my Cross-Cultural Video class again and meant to share it with all of you.  It was supposed to be the beginning of a video exchange with a student from Belarus, however my partner had to drop from the class so I will never get a response to my Noise video.  Anyway, I thought it was a really interesting topic and wanted to share it:

Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for watching! :)

NEW MEDIA SENIOR SHOW

Haven't posted in over a month, but I just wanted to let you guys know that the New Media Senior Show is up and running and looks great.  You only have until this Friday to check it out in the Passage Gallery by the PAC.  Here is an album of a ton of images taken by Peter Ohring during the Opening Reception this past Saturday.

Opening of the Senior Show Saturday April 23rd, 2011

Make sure you check out the show before it ends!

PTV69 - Studio Executives

Check out one of PTV's new shows Studio Executives.  They have two episodes up right now and they are definitely worth watching.  Check out the show live every Thursday at Midnight!!!

Studio Execs episode 1 - watch more funny videos

Studio Execs episode 2 - watch more funny videos

Senior Project Update

Three days ago I finally made some huge progress on my senior project.  I recently ordered 12 worm screw dc motors off of ebay and on Tuesday they came in the mail!  Being very excited I immediately made my way over to Home Depot to get myself a new power drill, a pair of pliers, and a 2 by 4.  My plan was to make a bunch of equilateral triangles.  That means all of the corners were going to have to be 60º.  Since I was home I could use my parents table saw to cut the 2 by 4 into triangles.

Lots of Triangle Blocks

After cutting the triangles my mom, my friend Scott, and I sanded all the sides and slightly rounded the corners.

Triangle Blocks and Motor with Worm Screw

I then wanted to see how the motors would attach to the wood.  I drilled a hole in the approximate center of the wood block and then screwed the worm screw motor into the hole on the block.  It worked out even better than I imagined.  Check out the image below.

Triangle Block Attached to Motor with Worm Screw

Here is a video of how it works:

The motor above will just be my test motor.  Since I have 13 motors I have 3 that I can do pretty much whatever with since I'm going to try to stick to 10 motors in my installation.  I came up with the idea of using triangle blocks, because now I can use the three sides to attach my three printer cartridges that will eventually be filled up with ink and then used to spit out ink all over the room.  I am then going to paint all of the wooden triangles white and soon you will see what that looks like.  I will also post sketches of how these motors will be attached in the final project.

Tweet

Home for Cross-Cultural Video

Our Cross-Cultural Video class had to make a video about "Home" or "Where You Are At."  This is what I made:

Tweet

PTV Live Shows Are Back!

Yay!  The new Spring semester has kicked off and that means Live Shows are back up and running.  There's a few new ones this semester and some of our old favorites like Whalehammer and Purchase Late Night are back as well.  Here is the schedule so far:

PTV Live Show Schedule

Monday
10:00 PM	Dick TV
11:00 PM	HoodRat Hotline
Midnight	Peter & Laura's Power Hower
Tuesday
9:30 PM	Everything I Own Smells Like Piss
10:00 PM	Movie Magic
11:00 PM	You're Naked
Wednesday
9:30 PM	Brick TV
10:00 PM	PTV MEETING: COME JOIN US!
Midnight	Purchase Late Night
Thursday
9:00 PM	News Flash with Michael Latin
10:00 PM	Show and Tell
11:00 PM	Whalehammer
Midnight	Studio Executives

Some of the shows may switch around, but for now this is what it looks like.  Tune into PTV on channel 69 or watch it live on PTV69.com.

Tweet

2 Million High Score Zuma Blitz

First two weeks of school have already been busy, so I haven't had a chance to really update.  In my spare time like always I play Zuma Blitz and I would just like to say that I just scored 2,149,290 points!!!

That is all...

Getting a High Score in Zuma Blitz

Now I may not be an expert at getting the highest possible scores in Zuma, but I do often come out on top with scores over a million.  My average score is over 500,000 and to many that already sounds like a lot.  There are a ton of things to keep in mind when trying to obtain a big score.

Here's a short list of the things that will boost your score:

• Obtaining fruit during the game
• Never missing a shot.  Huge combos
• Gap bonuses
• Speed
• Multiplier balls and Time balls
• Curve clear bonus
• Using the right powers
• Bursting a lot of balls

Believe it or not getting the fruits can make a big difference in the outcome of your score.  Every fruit you get gives you more points than the fruit you got before it.  Also the higher the level you are the more points your fruits will be worth.  At level 65 I got a new fruit:

Never missing a shot is great, because it actually multiplies your shot score by your combo.  If you have a x28 combo then your shot will be multiplied by 28, but if you miss your combo will be back to 0.

Circled the chain bonus and amount

Gap bonuses are always good to get as well.  They can yield more points.  To shoot through a gap you must have a space between the closest string of balls to you.  When you shoot through that space to hit the string of balls farthest from you, you will be rewarded with gap shot bonus points.  You must be shooting through a gap of balls to get the bonus points.

Circled Gap Shot Bonus

Speed is always good for points.  Speed is good, because the faster you are no matter the mistakes, the more balls you will hit and the less likely you are to lose your hot frog speed.  If you wait too long between taking shots then you will lose your build up of speed and restrict yourself from getting the hot frog.  Now it may be hard sometimes to always make combos especially if the ball or balls you are given to work with don't match anything that is on the board.  It is important to quickly give up the idea of saving your combo and either shoot a ball off board or next to another of the same colour and then to quickly switch to a ball that matches a combo to keep up your speed.  You will have to make this decision quickly and it will mean you will lose your combo, but you at least will retain your speed if you are quick enough in your decision.  Don't forget however that you can use the space bar on your keyboard or the right mouse button to switch between the coming up ball and the ball you have ready to be shot.

Using spacebar or right mouse click to change between balls

Multiplier and Time balls are really important for high scores.  The more time you have the more chances to raise your score.  Also the higher the multiplier the higher the score.  So how come you can get all the way up to a X9 multiplier and still end up with a score that is fairly low?  Well there are several reasons for this.  The biggest reason is that you didn't get the multiplier balls as fast as you could.  The quicker you get the balls the more time you have for your score to be affected by them.  If you get X7 and you still have 30 seconds of game time left then that's a whole 30 extra seconds multiplying by 7 and that can be huge.  Another reason is that even though you have X9 you may be going really slow and not shooting many balls.  If you don't shoot a lot of balls don't expect your score to get much higher.  Again this is why speed is important.

SCORE X8

Next up is Curve Clear Bonus.  Another important thing for a good score.  A curve clear bonus is when you clear all of the balls from one of the curves.  Doing this is sure to give you some good points and make a nice sound.

CURVED CLEARED +9600

Using the right powers can help you get a high score.  My favorite combination is using the Multiplier, Cannon King, and Chrono Balls.  The Multiplier is good, because you automatically start a game with X2.  Canon King is a little better than the regular Canon.  It will appear much more often on the rollout.  In fact as soon as you pick up a canon ball a new one will appear almost immediately.  Chrono Balls are good, because they add an extra second to every time ball.  Although a combined amount of 6 extra seconds rather than 5 may not sound great, but it adds up.  I do enjoy sometimes using the Sun Frog power.  It costs 1500 mojo, but it gives you two extra hot frogs for a combined amount of 5 shots when you get the hot frog.  If you don't often get the hot frog during the game I wouldn't suggest spending the mojo on this one however.

With the Canon you can shoot multiple special balls at one time!

The last and probably most obvious ways to get a larger score is to hit a lot of balls.  going for the large chains are always the best idea unless you have a chance to hit a special ball, because those should always be aimed for first.  The amount balls you hit will also determine how much mojo and XP you will receive at the end of a game.

Last thing to keep in mind and can actually help you a lot is to learn the sounds of the game.  I know it sounds silly, but keep your speakers on if you can and listen to the explosions and noises the game makes.  You will learn that each power makes a different noise when it appears on the board.  You can also tell when a power or special ball is taken off the board by the noise it makes and also a different noise is used when you actually get the special ball. Even when the fruit appears you will be able to tell by the noise it makes.  Therefore you don't have to keep looking around for nothing.  Keep in mind these noises and you will start learning to find the special balls much quicker without having to do much searching.

Well that's about it.  If you have anything in mind that I may have forgot that you would like to share I would love to hear it.  Let me know what powers you guys use and why you think they work the best.  Also check out this great glitch I screen captured:

How did I get over there!

Tweet

Reversible Wristlet

I know it's been a while since I updated, but for being a break I have been pretty busy.  I have been working, but having my share of fun as well.  I just finished making a reversible wristlet.  Check it out:

Front of bag

The pocket on the front of the bag was not originally intentional, however after sewing the bottom of the bag together and then flipping it inside out to see how it looked the fabric had perfectly fell into the shape of a pocket.  So it seemed fitting to add a button and make it official.  The pocket is a perfect size for something like an ID card.

Detail of pocket and button

I sewed the green button on using gold thread.

Detail of top of bag

I took red sewing thread and used a box stitch around the top of the bag to secure the fabric in place over the knitted bag.  I then sewed a small green button on the top to hold the top of the bag together.  I also took the red thread and tied it several times around the base of the wrist band not only as decoration, but to strongly secure the loop onto the bag as well.

Back of bag

Inside view of bag

The bag has a lot of room for essential things.  It is perfect for id cards, credit cards and money.  It also has enough elasticity and room to hold all those things as well as my digital camera, my phone, and a chapstick if I so wish.

Other side of bag

I knitted the reverse side of the bag using the loom.  I have never made a bag before and I didn't look up how to do it.  I just tried something and it ended up working.  The wristband I braided by taking the end of the string that was left from knitting it on the loom and making a series of slip knots on the single string to create a braid.

Front view with button

Detail of button

The button works well on both the plaid side as well as the cream knitted side.  I think overall it came out well and I can use it for many occasions.  Let me know what you think!

Tweet

Finished Another Scarf!

Remember that scarf I was working on for my mom?  Well I finally finished it... took more than a year, but I got it done.  I knitted it on size 13 knitting needles.  I realized after finishing it that I hate using knitting needles and I'm probably going to stick to using a loom from now on, because not only is it easier, but it's ten times faster, more precise, and for me easier to fix when I mess up.  Anyway here are some images of the finished project.

Full image of finished scarf

Close up on tassels

Close up on tassels and part of scarf

I am very happy with how it turned out.  Let me know if you like it.  The tassels were a pain to do, because I had to make so many of them.  I created them by taking a piece of folded cardboard and then wrapping the two coloured yarns around the cardboard three times and then cutting them on the open part of the cardboard to create a 6 stringed tassel.  I then used a small piece of either purple or green yarn to tie the tassels in the center where they fold and then used the two ends of the knot to tie into the end of the scarf.  I had to make about 28 groups of tassels.  I probably didn't explain that process very well, but I learned part of it by watching the YouTube video, Make It Mine Magazine - Make a Tassel. Instead of creating a head at the top of the tassel, I made them without it.

Tweet