Create Creativity

So there's been a few ideas bouncing in my head recently. These ideas go into creativity and art category. While I love science and and learning, I want to explore more into my creativity and art in a way. This is more for hobby-sake rather than current job. Being a fossil preparator is science and learning what it is and the context of the bone but it is also an art removing the rock matrix and fitting the pieces together and the final aesthetic of a bone. Instead this is about my non-job related skill/art. Outside the realm of the science I've chosen. So let's go through these different 'arts' I want to expand more on!

Music

Now I've been playing bass for 5 years, I've writing songs and I've played with other players. But since Cory (My drummer and co-founder off The Ocean Men. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWHf8lB3D6U) left for Cool-umbus last summer, I've been in a sort of funk (pun) with my bass. I keep coming up with ideas for songs but I want to jam it out with Cory to see where it can go. I want to overcome this and be able to write better songs and structures as a more solo-type play. I keep wanting to write some songs for like a 15 minute set at open mike at Donkey or something. Something more melodic and interestingly complex, I'm thinking two hand tapping songs and finger playing, rather than my favorite style of slapping. I am slowly coming with songs and some getting stuck in my head. Perhaps I can use this blog as a way of posting ideas and receiving criticism.

Level Design
What? Level design? Yes for videogames. I keep wanting to know what goes in the designers head as they make multiplayer maps or how to guide the player through the level. Its amazing how in Half-Life 2 guides the player subtly through the entire game. I also love how the maps in Quake 3 just flow during fast pace fragfest. All I really want now is some sort of level editor software, even if it is for a side scroller like mario. Ultimately I want a program for first person shooters. I want a small community (real -life friends and/or through the internet) who has this software and we all create, modify, and test maps. I do not want to make a big budget game, I just want to design maps for my own fun. In which I came up for an idea for a FPS while in the shower. Basically its Portal meets Mario Galaxy meets Quake 3. All on an MC Escher painting. Imagining fragging on this: I already have a bunch of ideas for portions of 'surreal' level design. I just want to tools damnit to mess around!

Hair
I'm looking forward to my beard. Its getting there and should look pretty good. Then once it gets warmer it shall turn into mutton chops and I'm thinking of doing a mohawk. Should be an interesting combo. We'll find out! Its nice knowing that facial hair and hair in general can be creative or an art. Just think of a full beard as a block of marble to be sculpted.

Food
Basically mess around more with my BBQ Rib recipe. I ran into my friend Tim at the Union and we talked about BBQ Ribs and how he wants to have it as a hobby later in life for Rib cook-offs. I like how he put it: as a hobby. So now I want to look up various methods and recipes and try them out. Goddamn, I love ribs.

I also want to write short stories. But I'd do the previously mentioned stuff first.

*Grabs bass*

This is how it begins

This is how it begins. It has been a few days since I deactivated my Facebook. Since then I've been noticing a few features of Facebook I kinda miss. In more specific sense, I like the ease of information being shared among people I know and talk to. It is a much faster way of linking a page or video on youtube on someone's wall. It seems strange to me nowadays to email just a link to someone without writing more. It is more or less "passing-off" information without actually contacting the person. The second thing I miss is event invitations. Facebook, to me, is probably the easiest way to organize a party. It beats the hassle of calling everyone and informing them in advance or, heaven forbid, mailing out or handing out invitations that we see in 90s teen movies (We know we hate people handing out flyers, right?).

Other than those things, I'm not really missing much on facebook. Sure stalking is harder because I have to do it the old school way (eavesdropping, pretending to know I can read at the coffee shop, and the good old ladder and binoculars). And yes, I miss looking at pictures of me to remind me what I look/was liked years ago. But the point reminds: Why did I leave Facebook? The past few weeks I have been wrestling around the idea. I wondered what really am I getting out of my profile? I felt like it was a web page clone of myself that people communicate to rather than myself. It did not seem organic... (No relation to organic foods). It occurred to me that I have been on Facebook for the past 5 years. My whole college career on Facebook. How did it influence me? I am a part of the facebook generation. It brought a new way of managing your social life and at a time when my social life expands much like everyone going into college. So the question I am posing is this: What would my social life be like without Facebook?

That's right. I am challenging and experimenting a social life without Facebook. I want to speak to people more and have the reverse as well. There's many ways of getting in contact with me rather than through Facebook. Cell phone, AIM, e-mail, visiting me at work, etc. Those were the old school ways. I am not saying people don't do this, but it seems more likely to 'add as friends first' attitude before, say cell phone numbers or email or screenname exchange. I want to engage in other forms of communication besides the passive Facebook. But yet I have an urge to somehow express myself via internet.

The Answer? You're reading it. I hereby am starting a blog, huzzah! I feel at least I have accomplish some sort of writing on my own that is both cohesive, interesting, and importantly well-structured. It may be a challenge or an acquired hobby. Who knows? I sure as hell do not. But isn't that the fun of it? I mainly want to express thoughts I have been having on random topics. Hopefully make them into some fun and hopefully allow the reader to understand how I think. And so...

This is how it begins