| Photochallenge (technology hath failed me)Happy Valentine's Day to all christians and lovestruck humans. I have been too busy helping my entire neighborhood shovel out from the wrath of last night's winter storm to celebrate with my girlfriend, and I am sure she is doing the same. We celebrate by not celebrating. Take that, American Greetings. For my first real blog entry of the year, I have decided to usher in a new font and self-portrait and to respond to Jillian's PhotoBlog Challenge. You can check out her blog for the details, but it fundamentally asks the participant to take pictures of his or her five favorite things, post them, and tell a brief story about why that thing is one of your faves. What were not detailed on her blog were the true challenges, including the following: A.) Finding five things you would consider to be favorite things, and B.) taking pictures of them with a shoddy cell phone camera in a room with very poor lighting. This is honestly the best I could come up with. Let's have at it. 
SCALPELEXIS I warned you that these pictures were going to be bad. You can probably at least tell that this is a "Scalpelexis" card from the Judgment expansion of Magic: the Gathering. Now, I won't lie. I suck at Magic, and I actually haven't played the game in about 3 years, so I may as well disassemble my decks. I still have all my cards, which isn't many, and of all of them, this one is my absolute favorite, even though I have others that are probably much better. When my friend Bill was introducing the game to me, I didn't have any cards, so he let me use a flying creature/burn deck he constructed. I believe he used a white soldier/healing deck; something with very few flying creatures in it. That's how this baby came to be so handy. I know you can't read the rules of the card from the garbage photo, but basically what happens is that if you deal damage directly to an opposing player (unchallenged by his or her defending creatures) that player is forced to remove cards from his or her deck (when a player exhausts his or her deck, the player loses). Since he had no flying creatures to block my Scalpelexis, it came through unopposed every time, so I forced him to discard some good cards from his deck over and over. Proclaiming my love for the card, he warned me that, as a rare card from a past expansion, it would be very dificult to come by, which is why rapturous joy could be had when I found one of my own. Discard four cards. Discard four more. Do it. You know you want to. 
SIBELIUS COMPOSITION SOFTWARE I don't know if computer software counts as a favorite thing or if it even should, but if it weren't for this, I would still be resigning to composing little piano pieces instead of all the different styles I have. I was introduced to Sibelius software in college (version 1.2 or something). Up until then I composed only for the piano because that is lamentably the only instrument I have learned to play. With this software, one can compose for soloist, chamber ensemble, orchestra, band, chorus, SATB choir, guitar tablature, ... pretty much any instrument combination you want. That excerpt in the below entry is from a work I composed with this software for fifteen different synthesized sounds (eight keyboard and seven percussion). I saved it as MIDI file, converted it to a WAV file, and manipulated various playback features to alter the sound considerably. The downside of the software is the price. I think right now this is running about $600, so only consider this if you are serious about composing music. My girlfriend just called me. She, too, has been shoveling 4½ foot high drifts from in front of her door so she could get into her house. I hear more snow is on the way up through this weekend. Well, at least we're not Oswego. 
A VERY SPECIAL CD-R I have boatloads of CDs, many of which I cherish, but this one will always be very special to me, so much so that I rarely even play it. Recorded in February of 2004, this CD contains a rendition of the first movement of my first String Quartet performed from sight by the Alexander String Quartet. While it is nowhere near what I envision a rehearsed performance of the work would be, the fact that they performed it so well after having barely looked at it before hand is astonishing. It also fulfilled a dream of mine to have my music performed by a professional ensemble. The audience of 12 or 13 people present at this performance seemed genuinely impressed by what they had heard. My next dream is to have my orchestral works performed. I fully expect this dream to never come true, so I won't be disappointed if/when this does not occur, but whoever the new conductor of the Erie Philharmonic will be, I hope he or she will support new music by young, unknown composers. I vote for Paul Haas. I'm pulling for you!
HERO QUEST BOARD GAME Forget Monopoly, Clue, or the game of Life. This is the greatest board game of all time (Greater than Talisman? Debate, anyone?). I think what I love so much about this game is the highly detailed three dimensional excessories that add a sense of realism to the game, and the nearly endless different quests you can embark on/have others play, and if you are creative enough, yes, the variations can be nearly endless. I used to create quests that linked together to tell epic stories (epic for a 10-year-old, at least), and the only way to get through the story was to complete the quests, which often required riddle and puzzle solving to get through in addition to exploring and combat. When I went away to college, I kept this in my sister's room for safe keeping, which was a bad idea considering that she is one of the biggest slobs in this census region. I was able to recover it with all the pieces in tact (I hope). The reason I put it in her room is because, and you probably can't see it in the picture, my brother tried to sell this at a garage sale for $72.97. As he got older, he learned more realistic prices, like when he sold my Mikael Renberg rookie card for $30. I don't need anybody selling off my stuff and netting profit. I'll send out the Witch Lord of Barak Tor to deal with those who do. Drum roll on a taut snare, please. 
SUPER GROVER LITHOGRAPH This thing is so cool I didn't even open it until today, a year and a half after I bought it! This is my memento from the Wizard Comic Convention in Chicago. First of all, if you've never been to Chicago, you're not missing much. The El could likely make you ill with its constant josteling, foul odor, or both. Speaking of odor, the entirety of downtown Chicago smells like garbage. I am totally serious. I don't know if it was because of the proximity to the lake, a hot summer, or what but it reeked. I went to a White Sox game (this was the year they would go on to win the World Series) and watched the Sox lose while being more interested in the out of town scores. I ate a goat burger. It wasn't really goat. It was a reeeeeeeeally shady hamburger joint under a bridge. The guy who founded it was evidently the same guy who placed the goat curse on the Cubbies back in the '40s. The best thing about Chicago, though, is the deep dish. You can get it on almost any street corner after waiting about an hour (that's not much worse than any restaurant on upper Peach on a Saturday). I'm not really much for, well, eating, but that was the best pizza I have ever had, and I'm not talking Little Caesar's here. The thing is a damn meal. Two slices and I was beached. What I brought back from that vacation as far as souvenirs go would be a bunch of free swag that I have probably lost or thrown out by now, a shirt that does not fit, and this lithograph. I had to. Everyone knows deep down that Grover kicks ass, and that if this is true, which it is, then Super Grover must kick superass. Doughass. FatJaredass. Elmoass, if you will, because Elmo is a fucking chode. I scream it from the rooftops. FUUUUUUCKIIIING CHOOOOOOODE (chooooode chooode chode) In any event, I was thoroughly bummed out when I learned that Alex Ross, the artist, would be signing his lithographs the following day and I would not be there. I really don't know if those five things truly encompass my favorite things, but no matter, the stories that go with them are at least something to chew on, and I've been writing this thing for hours. I've listened to this Penderecki CD at least three times and watched Jeopardy(!). I'm going to get some food, perhaps a pizza, but not a Chi-town deep dish. Doughass. |
