Smile for the camera

At the newspaper we have been having some slow weeks for news. Which is not good news for us reporters. We need to hit a quota for stories by the end of the semester and slow weeks do not help.

In order to keep my story count rising and my mood not angered at the lack of news. I have been taking photos for stories and working on multimedia projects using those photos and audio from interviews for stories.

I can't say that they are the best photos. I have never taken any photo classes and all I know is that if it looks like it could be a good photo then it might be. Here is the photo that we ran in the paper for a story i covered about volunteers at a soup kitchen in San Jose.


Getting a photo in the paper counts for 1/4 of a story. So if I take enough good photos for a decent story, I might be able to pick up some of the slack in my story count while just doing what I normally have to do for the paper anyway.

Anyway, I am just sitting in the student union dreading the work I have to do this weekend, mainly because my girlfriend is home on her spring break and I have a full week of work to do before I go on mine. And I am shooting to be ahead on my work before I take that time off.

Well, now I am off to survey people for a class project that I need to finish by the end of the day and turn in via email before the noonish tomorrow.

No One's Home

I just got back from a jazz concert on campus and decided that I was not going to wait till tomorrow to go home for my mom's birthday.

I went back to my place and grabbed some laundry and the books I need for this coming week's tests and made my way home at the wonderful hour of 10 p.m. I got home in 45 minutes which is a pretty decent time, but I can only thank the lack of traffic for making my trip short and pleasant.

I came home and grabbed my things from my car. I unlocked the front door and entered the door to my immensely empty house. No one is home. I came home for the weekend to celebrate my mother's birthday and she isn't even in town.

I was going to call my mom and dad to figure out where they had run off too, but then I realized that they are probably somewhere where it is a later timezone and waking them up was not something I wanted to do.

So now I am home and talking to my girlfriend on skype since I have no one else to talk to and i am writing this blog because I can never just do one thing at a time. And she is hating the fact that I am typing in her ear through my built-in microphone.

I appologize for starting all but one paragraph with the word "I."

The Limited Power of Media

On Wednesday, I wrote an opinion piece about the effect of the MMORPG, World of Warcraft and the addiction the game creates. Also about the social problems it creates. Any who, we posted it on our newspaper website, just like we do with all our stories, and to my surprise, no one commented on it.

I thought that all of nerdom would have a strong opinion about the addiction of WoW. But nope. Maybe they were all sleeping, or maybe they just don't read the newspaper. Maybe both? Who knows. Basically there was no response.

Maybe the players are aware of their addictions and just choose to ignore the fact they are addicted. As far as people agreeing with me who don't play but know someone, I was also surprised that no one commented on it. I would have loved to create some sort of controversy like some of the other column writers have done this semester, but I guess everyone agrees with me.

I am going to try to screen shot the story and post it up later for people who have not read it. But as far as I see right now, the power of the media and the ability to reach people is limited.

Heels Over Head

I know that my video game posts are not that exciting, but I hope this one will be more interesting. I have found a new summer project and I am very excited about drawing out the plans.

I got the idea for making Tetris shelves from an article in Wired magazine that depicted a narrow wall in an office, littered with different colored post-it notes that were arranged in a Tetris-like formations. Pieced together, the wall resembled an hour long attempt to form a five-live masterpiece.

Anyway, I got the idea to make Tetris piece shelves and though I was the only one until I did some research online. Someone already did it. I am not disappointed though. I will make mine the with and height of video game boxes and have my perfect square pieces have edge grabbers that will keep the game boxes from falling.

What I want to do, that I haven't seen in other designs, is to make each piece separate. This will allow me to change up the formation of the pieces if I get a new TV, or if I move into a new space. I am also excited because If I need more space, I can always just make a new piece.

The project will be time consuming not to mention cost a decent amount of money, but I am excited already. Maybe it will motivate me to finish some of my other woodworking projects, like the sign for my dad's office that I started almost four years ago.

Listening to: Heels Over Head by Boys Like Girls