Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The Blog of Failure

         So as promised, here's a new blog for this week. Earlier today, about two hours ago, I had my IMEA tryouts. As explained in the previous blog IMEA applies to some sections of band, choir, and orchestra. The orchestra IMEA tryouts were today, and they didn't go as planned. It started when I was driving to get to the school for auditions, and there was a LOT of traffic and therefore I did not have as much time as I would've liked to warm up and to practice the selections (which were posted on the door when you arrived). The piece that was being used for auditions was Brahms' Academic Festival Overture, which taken as a whole isn't that hard, but there are a couple of somewhat challenging parts in it. Here's a clip of it being played for those of you who like classical music, which I know isn't a lot.


        We found out that the teachers who are recording the auditions were late and somewhat clueless and therefore there had been a delay in our times, which was a waste of time and created chaos. Each room now was going at a different pace so no one was sure when their audition time was. I too was freaking out near my room, only to find out that I had been waiting at the wrong room and had to rush over to the right one and luckily make it barely in time. Halfway through the actual performance the recorder broke and I had to start all over again, which stunk because I had to start all over again. I then proceeded to fumble an easy part which really messed me up, and so I'm not sure how I did. Overall this was a pretty chaotic and strange experience
        I also said last week that I would be writing about Minecraft, the game that the gaming community has been clamoring about for the past month or so. Minecraft is game developed by indie developer Marcus Persson. The original concept of the game was a sort of survival game, but the community has turned it into a whole different ballgame. Their website is http://www.minecraft.net/, and the game is still in an Alpha state which means in early development, although it is still playable. Gaming commentators Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik summarize the game pretty well in these comics, http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/9/17/ and http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/9/20/ (warning first comic has one explicit word). Minecraft is the very definition of a sandbox game, you can do anything with the tools. Your hand "punches/chops" materials and you can collect them and use them to build more things. Some guy made a floating city, another a fortress, another a city underwater, houses (which I burn down), underground tunnels, anything! The game had a free weekend when the servers crashed about 2 weeks ago, and since then more and more people have been exposed through word of mouth. This game is fascinating since it's so different and who knows what it'll bring to the table for future games.
Another resource, http://www.giantbomb.com/minecraft/61-30475/everything-you-need-to-know-about-minecraft/35-447652/


        These two videos show how completely crazy the game is, especially the second one, some guy made a calculator within the game! This game has brought out completely crazy people from the gaming community and it'll be fun seeing what happens from here on out.
        This blog is running way too long so I'll close with a couple of thoughts. Today i had told my friends that I was blogging about videogames and comics and music and although some of them were joking around others were like "really man, that's really nerdish" or "I was going to, but writing about videogames seems too nerdish". Why are they so ashamed of what they enjoy doing? I understand that the level I take this stuff is pretty nerdy, but I don't know what the problem with it is. Just wanted to get that out there, and if you haven't already Arcade Fire is a great band that you should listen to.
Glak Out

2 comments:

  1. I think that it's really important that you're not ashamed of videogames and that you don't really care what other people think about it! If you read my intro about myself, I said I'm a history nerd, hence why I wanted to take AP Euro. I appreciate classical music as well. Also, I think adding the videos to your blog is a really nice touch!

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  2. Thanks for the support
    Getting videos is one of the more fun parts of writing this blogs, there's lots of good things out there
    Also as an update sadly I did not make IMEA
    Oh well, next year maybe, and I also feel I learned a lot from practicing for the audtitions, which is good

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