Last night I went out with Rose and her uni friends to have dinner and watch Sherlock Holmes all the way at Bondi Junction.
While waiting for everyone to arrive I noticed on the cinema's electronic board that Sherlock Holmes was full, so I was worried we weren't able to watch it and my first thought was to check if Avatar was full yet.
But it turns out that we had booked tickets to watch Sherlock Holmes, so a sigh of relief was breathed by Rose and I, moreso Rose, as she isn't too interested in watching Avatar based on the non-fact that it sounds like Abattoir despite those two words having nothing in common with each other. (I doubt she'll be happy with me posting this but I found it too cute and amusing not to...we're still going to watch Avatar Rose)
During dinner when we talked about how the session for Sherlock Holmes was full our friend revealed to us that he booked Gold Class tickets for us all (all 5 of us), to which we all (all 4 of us) gasped in a pleasant suprise and proceeded to wonder what it was like before deciding to go see what it was like.
To those who have seen the commercial shown in the cinema with that dorky looking guy who books Gold Class and gets all cocky walking through the special doors, sitting in his comfy seat getting food and drink delivered to him, the experience was like that, without the cocky and signing of a napkin.
We walked through the automatic class doors and entered a fancy bar room where we could sit down, order drinks and talk, all the while listening to mellow jazz music. After sitting down for a while a man came up to us asking if we were watching Sherlock Holmes to which we replied,
"Yes"
"The cinema is now ready for you to enter"
We enter and see a giant lounge room with 40 sofa seats. A man is reclined in his seat, moving around to find his most comfortable spot, another person has a camera out, taking pictures of this grand experience and we're soon ushered to our seats and sit down. We're told where the recliner button is and wait for the movie to start. Rose goes to buy popcorn and drinks, which are to be brought out to us later, sometime during the movie, which was interesting and made it so I couldn't eat all the popcorn in the first part of the movie.
I sit down and play with the recliner, too far down and I'm in sleeping position, a bit further up and I'm in a relaxed position. I take my shoes off and soon enough I forget I'm in the cinema and think I'm at home, my legs are raised, resting along the wall (I was on the right side of the cinema against a wall), and I soon realise that I'm probably blocking the view of the guy behind me, and lower my legs out of courtesy.
Our drink and popcorn arrive, both in a glass cup and glass bowl. The popcorn wasn't that great (to airy) and the coke seemed a bit watered down, either from the machine or the ice (or both). Never to miss an opportunity to embarrass myself, while returning the glass to the table that we are provided I banged it against the popcorn bowl, creating the sound that is emitted when two glass objects hit each other....clang? No, thats more metal....clink? No..thats a coin, we'll go with Chk-ting~.
The movie itself was good, Robert Downey Jr. is on a roll with his movies and I'm a huge detective fan, Sherlock Holmes was an old school Batman so you can't go wrong with that. I liked Sherlock Holmes train of thought, with his logical approach to everything. I look forward to the sequel. I'm not good with talking about movies so I'll just say it was enjoyable and the Gold Class experience made it all the more better.
Will I go again? When the right movie for it comes out, and if you're willing to shout me.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
My Blue Belt
After one year of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) training, I got 4 blue stripes on my white belt. The next step in the progession of BJJ is your blue belt, which is the next biggest step heading towards black belt.
The syllabus requires 6 months of training and minimum of 60 classes before you can get your blue belt, and even then you may not get it. The only way you get it is if they deem you worthy enough to get it, having seen you train over time.
So come July of 2009, 6 months of having 4 blue stripes I didn't get my blue belt, my brother did though, but he's a BJJ machine. I knew I wouldn't be getting it anyway as I was busy with uni, and having night classes also meant not being able to attend training, so I missed a lot of classes.
Come September of 2009, I was semi-confident that I would get my blue belt, but alas, it was still not my time, which made sense as I didn't really impress when I entered in a BJJ competition and lost in the first round via submission.
Come December 8th of 2009, I still wasn't sure. I had taken a month off prior due to university assignments and the flu so I couldn't go to classes to train. I returned in time for grading practice, two weeks ago. All four stripers had to do the same thing they did back when they had get their four stripes, that is show 50 techniques in 10 minutes. I was comfortable with all the techniques and the only problem was remembering them in an order that flowed well enough. Today, while waiting in line at Centrelink to hand in forms I took out my mobile cellular telephone and mapped out how I was going to do the techniques and in what order.
Come grading night I was feeling pretty confident in my ability. The instructors were also looking to really test us as well, making us grade the 3rd stripers moving onto 4th stripe. This was pretty daunting trying to count how many moves a person is doing and trying to make sure it reached 50, and if it didn't knowing which move they missed out. Fortunately it was alright, and the guy only missed out on one move, at least it should've been only that one move...
Then it was my turn, I had a minor mind-blank part way but finished in what was probably less than 8 minutes with a couple of minutes to sit around and watch the others finish.
After everyone showed off their technique in order to grade to the next level it was time for wrestling. We did 5 rounds, and as there were 5 of us who were on our 4th stripe, this meant the 2 instructors would wrestle all 5 of us, I suppose to really test us out.
The first instructor I wrestled was a brown belt, and the brother of Elvis Sinosic (who will be fighting in UFC 110 come February), he choked me out twice and both from side control position, a position I am very weak at, so I gotta work on that. The second instructor I wrestled was black belt Anthony Perosh (who hopefully will be fighting in UFC 110 come February). Knowing he would work for a forearm choke (think forearm crushing your neck, choking you), I worked to defend it, but could only resist the inevitable for so long before getting tapped out. We start again and I try to jump on top, only to get sweeped back onto the ground, what ensued afterwards was a 90+ kg man crushing a 64kg man with various body parts for a few minutes. He got me in knee ride (knee on belly, it hurts), I tried to counter, pushing his knee (which you shouldn't do but it was too painful not to), he countered this by putting his other knee on my belly, thus two knees on me, meaning all of his body weight on me. I scooted back to relieve pressure, he climbed higher with his knees onto my chest, then head, followed by shin to head, shoulder to head, back and forth, until 5 minutes of wrestling time ran out. Not something I want to go through again, thats for sure.
After wrestling we lined up for presentations and the instructors had 3 blue belts, meaning 2 of us wouldn't be getting our blue belts. The first two names were announced and neither of them were my name, so I was starting to feel anxious and worried, fortunately the third name was mine, and I finally achieved my BJJ goal of the year of getting my blue belt, at the last grading of the year no less.
The only problem now is everyone will think I'm good. So I had better start training to be good and show that I'm worthy of this belt.
So two years of training, with a few months taken off here and there and I am now a blue belt. Another 2-3 years and I'll get my purple belt. But for now, I'm fine being blue, it is my favourite colour after all...
The syllabus requires 6 months of training and minimum of 60 classes before you can get your blue belt, and even then you may not get it. The only way you get it is if they deem you worthy enough to get it, having seen you train over time.
So come July of 2009, 6 months of having 4 blue stripes I didn't get my blue belt, my brother did though, but he's a BJJ machine. I knew I wouldn't be getting it anyway as I was busy with uni, and having night classes also meant not being able to attend training, so I missed a lot of classes.
Come September of 2009, I was semi-confident that I would get my blue belt, but alas, it was still not my time, which made sense as I didn't really impress when I entered in a BJJ competition and lost in the first round via submission.
Come December 8th of 2009, I still wasn't sure. I had taken a month off prior due to university assignments and the flu so I couldn't go to classes to train. I returned in time for grading practice, two weeks ago. All four stripers had to do the same thing they did back when they had get their four stripes, that is show 50 techniques in 10 minutes. I was comfortable with all the techniques and the only problem was remembering them in an order that flowed well enough. Today, while waiting in line at Centrelink to hand in forms I took out my mobile cellular telephone and mapped out how I was going to do the techniques and in what order.
Come grading night I was feeling pretty confident in my ability. The instructors were also looking to really test us as well, making us grade the 3rd stripers moving onto 4th stripe. This was pretty daunting trying to count how many moves a person is doing and trying to make sure it reached 50, and if it didn't knowing which move they missed out. Fortunately it was alright, and the guy only missed out on one move, at least it should've been only that one move...
Then it was my turn, I had a minor mind-blank part way but finished in what was probably less than 8 minutes with a couple of minutes to sit around and watch the others finish.
After everyone showed off their technique in order to grade to the next level it was time for wrestling. We did 5 rounds, and as there were 5 of us who were on our 4th stripe, this meant the 2 instructors would wrestle all 5 of us, I suppose to really test us out.
The first instructor I wrestled was a brown belt, and the brother of Elvis Sinosic (who will be fighting in UFC 110 come February), he choked me out twice and both from side control position, a position I am very weak at, so I gotta work on that. The second instructor I wrestled was black belt Anthony Perosh (who hopefully will be fighting in UFC 110 come February). Knowing he would work for a forearm choke (think forearm crushing your neck, choking you), I worked to defend it, but could only resist the inevitable for so long before getting tapped out. We start again and I try to jump on top, only to get sweeped back onto the ground, what ensued afterwards was a 90+ kg man crushing a 64kg man with various body parts for a few minutes. He got me in knee ride (knee on belly, it hurts), I tried to counter, pushing his knee (which you shouldn't do but it was too painful not to), he countered this by putting his other knee on my belly, thus two knees on me, meaning all of his body weight on me. I scooted back to relieve pressure, he climbed higher with his knees onto my chest, then head, followed by shin to head, shoulder to head, back and forth, until 5 minutes of wrestling time ran out. Not something I want to go through again, thats for sure.
After wrestling we lined up for presentations and the instructors had 3 blue belts, meaning 2 of us wouldn't be getting our blue belts. The first two names were announced and neither of them were my name, so I was starting to feel anxious and worried, fortunately the third name was mine, and I finally achieved my BJJ goal of the year of getting my blue belt, at the last grading of the year no less.
The only problem now is everyone will think I'm good. So I had better start training to be good and show that I'm worthy of this belt.
So two years of training, with a few months taken off here and there and I am now a blue belt. Another 2-3 years and I'll get my purple belt. But for now, I'm fine being blue, it is my favourite colour after all...
Friday, November 27, 2009
My Film Animation
Last semester I took a subject called Film Animation, it was a core subject and our lecturer/tutor was a professional animator and also a very laid back guy.
So laid back that in the end we just worked on the one assessment, when there was supposed to be two or something. We learnt how to use old school cameras, hand held ones that shouldn't be hand held because they're quite heavy and holding them for long periods of time would cause you to do a very slow pan down to the ground and the other type of camera was used for 2D animation, called an Oxberry camera.
The oxberry camera was cool, and was basically a top down camera, you put a piece of paper onto a platform, take a picture, change the paper to the next one, take a picture and so forth until you finish your animation. Thats a pretty bad explanation of what the camera is but if you want more information, google is your friend, I'm just your mate.
So our assignment was to work in groups and make an animation of anything, done in any style we want. A group did pixellation (Example Here), another did cut out animation, another did claymation (like Nightmare before Christmas or Coraline) another did 2D animation and our group did 2D animation.
There was four people in our group and we had to work together to make one piece of animation. Knowing that I sucked at drawing compared to the other people if we did one piece of animation using one style of art when it came to my scenes they would look horrible compared to the other scenes. One idea was to have people focus on certain parts of the animation, for example one person just does the main character, I just do backgrounds and so forth but this meant lots of meeting up and stuff to get things done, and who wants to meet up with their group?
I then took the Simpsons route and pitched the idea of a main character travelling through different worlds, and each worlds is taken care of by each animator, meaning four worlds all up. The character would travel to each world via a remote control, where it came from, nobody cares...
This idea was well received and we went ahead with the idea. The character would remain similar looking throughout the whole animation and each person's part would take 30 or so seconds each. Some people had high expectations for themselves, thinking they could do Disney-esque type animation, I took an easier path and did cut outs of my character and world. I decided to go with lots of colours and a bright world for my part, as the other worlds were different. So I went with the brightest and most colourful world I knew, the Mario world!
Now, the problem with Oxberry cameras is that you cannot go back, once you take a picture, thats it, so lots of people planned their scenes before hand. Timing everything out so that the animation would look good. I had cut outs however, and didn't find the time to time everything out properly. So I did a rough timing out of my animation and come filming day what I did was the first time I animated my part, which was quite interesting. Fortunately, I could edit it in post and did so to drag some frames out or to cut some frames out to make the animation flow better.
Overall I was pleased with my part, but compared to the other parts (particularly the first and last part), I pale in comparison. 2D animation is not my thing however, 3D is where I'm at. I'll have to compile some of the stuff I did this semester to show you guys, but that'll be another blog.
The subject was pretty fun because it was so laid back, we had no worries about failing because the lecturer was so care-free, he seemed like one of those stoner guys. A whole semester and one assignment, which produced a good result, I ain't complaining!
So laid back that in the end we just worked on the one assessment, when there was supposed to be two or something. We learnt how to use old school cameras, hand held ones that shouldn't be hand held because they're quite heavy and holding them for long periods of time would cause you to do a very slow pan down to the ground and the other type of camera was used for 2D animation, called an Oxberry camera.
The oxberry camera was cool, and was basically a top down camera, you put a piece of paper onto a platform, take a picture, change the paper to the next one, take a picture and so forth until you finish your animation. Thats a pretty bad explanation of what the camera is but if you want more information, google is your friend, I'm just your mate.
So our assignment was to work in groups and make an animation of anything, done in any style we want. A group did pixellation (Example Here), another did cut out animation, another did claymation (like Nightmare before Christmas or Coraline) another did 2D animation and our group did 2D animation.
There was four people in our group and we had to work together to make one piece of animation. Knowing that I sucked at drawing compared to the other people if we did one piece of animation using one style of art when it came to my scenes they would look horrible compared to the other scenes. One idea was to have people focus on certain parts of the animation, for example one person just does the main character, I just do backgrounds and so forth but this meant lots of meeting up and stuff to get things done, and who wants to meet up with their group?
I then took the Simpsons route and pitched the idea of a main character travelling through different worlds, and each worlds is taken care of by each animator, meaning four worlds all up. The character would travel to each world via a remote control, where it came from, nobody cares...
This idea was well received and we went ahead with the idea. The character would remain similar looking throughout the whole animation and each person's part would take 30 or so seconds each. Some people had high expectations for themselves, thinking they could do Disney-esque type animation, I took an easier path and did cut outs of my character and world. I decided to go with lots of colours and a bright world for my part, as the other worlds were different. So I went with the brightest and most colourful world I knew, the Mario world!
Now, the problem with Oxberry cameras is that you cannot go back, once you take a picture, thats it, so lots of people planned their scenes before hand. Timing everything out so that the animation would look good. I had cut outs however, and didn't find the time to time everything out properly. So I did a rough timing out of my animation and come filming day what I did was the first time I animated my part, which was quite interesting. Fortunately, I could edit it in post and did so to drag some frames out or to cut some frames out to make the animation flow better.
Overall I was pleased with my part, but compared to the other parts (particularly the first and last part), I pale in comparison. 2D animation is not my thing however, 3D is where I'm at. I'll have to compile some of the stuff I did this semester to show you guys, but that'll be another blog.
The subject was pretty fun because it was so laid back, we had no worries about failing because the lecturer was so care-free, he seemed like one of those stoner guys. A whole semester and one assignment, which produced a good result, I ain't complaining!
Thursday, October 22, 2009
My King of a Poem
There once was a man who would be King
He had to be at the center of everything
We'd turn him around, thinking we'd be safe and sound
And focused our attention on another friend we found
But he'd find a way back in the center again
Causing us all a very great pain
A pain neverending that it gave us quite a scare
For the King was here, there and everywhere
In this mixed up world of ours, things aren't as they say
For we took the King and sent him to a place far, far away
Allowing us to finally stay and play
But somehow this man who would be King
Found a way to be the center of everything
He had to be at the center of everything
We'd turn him around, thinking we'd be safe and sound
And focused our attention on another friend we found
But he'd find a way back in the center again
Causing us all a very great pain
A pain neverending that it gave us quite a scare
For the King was here, there and everywhere
In this mixed up world of ours, things aren't as they say
For we took the King and sent him to a place far, far away
Allowing us to finally stay and play
But somehow this man who would be King
Found a way to be the center of everything
Saturday, September 12, 2009
My Intimate Evening of Grand Illusion
August 8th 2009 - David Copperfield finally returns to Australia after some 10 years of not returning to Australia to do a few magic shows for us, and I went!
Here's the basic gist of what happened and just for fun how I think it happened, or didn't happen.
We (Rose and I) got floor seats, my parents got Bronze seats and they found us before we could find them so we lost that "Where's Wally" type game. Come 8pm or so the show starts with a video montage of Copperfield in the media ending with him coming out to our applause.
He started off with a simple cross arm twisting thing that everyone did, I'm sure some of you know the
little trick.
[Anyone can do this]
Next he did a steel plate penetration effect. The basic look of the effect is like a bunk bed, Copperfield lies on the bottom bunk, when the bunk above him is a steel plate that is basically infront of his face by a few cm's. A cloth is spread across the bunk bed and slowly, but surely Copperfield wakes up, going through the steel plate to standing on the steel plate.
[No idea how it's done, but I think Copperfield has the power to go through objects]
The cool thing about the show was Copperfield interaction with the crowd, getting us to clap and walking through the crowd to pick someone to go on stage with him and the next effect was one that required a ring, so of course he picked a girl. Showing a tiny baby shoe he put that into his back pocket after it has been examined by the girl and then took the girl's ring, joked about how cheap it was then made it disappear, only to have it reappear in his tiny little shoe in his back pocket, trapped in the loop of the shoe lace. Untieing the shoe lace, the ring was returned to the girl free of charge.
[Copperfield mucked up the trick the first time, and had to do it again, but I don't think anyone noticed. I know how this one is done, but I'm not telling how, just incase one day I want to do something similar]
The next illusion involved borrowing a shiny red tie from one of the audience members. With hundreds of shows done, there always seems to be someone in the first few rows who happens to wear a shiny red tie. This illusion was a fun one, making the tie dance around on its own, singing along to the song played, putting the tie into a box, having it continue to sing and dance with no one touching it, it was fun to watch. In the end three other ties pop out of a box and sing and dance before jumping out of the box, dying in the process and the shiny red tie is returned to the person who wore it after the song is over.
[I think most people have a good idea how this is done (magical strings), but I just loved how well the tie was being manipulated]
Next was a card trick! Picking two women from the crowd Copperfield pulled out a scorpion in a box and made one of the women hold the box, freaking her out to our amusement. After some teasing, trying to make the other woman touch the scorpion he had her pick a card, lost the card into the deck, had her shuffle the deck and then made a fan with the cards, picked up the scorpion with his barehands and lowered it onto the fan. The scorpion then managed to pick the right card with it's pincers. Quite cool.
[The scorpion was taught very well]
Next was an illusion, one I really liked because it was extremely visual. Getting into a box, with his head, feet and hands the only things you can see Copperfield shrinks himself down so just a head, small box, hands and feet. After which the platform is revolved to show how small he is. A very cool illusion. He then made a joke about John Howard and how short he was but got a "oooooh" reaction from the crowd to which he replied "Thats what they told me to say".
[Copperfield is a robot, that can shrink]
The longest part of the night would be the Grandfather prediction. Telling a story about his grandfather and how he played lotto and wanted a fancy car he attempts to have us predict those numbers, along with two other things. All throughout the night there was a briefcase hanging infront of the stage, which contains those predictions, so now we're about to find out if Copperfield is right.
3 people chose 2 different double digit numbers, resulting in 6 numbers (for lotto), someone was asked to specify a time for when he last was uh..in bed and I think the last person said what colour underwear they were wearing. The briefcase is opened, showing a piece of paper and a tape, playing the tape the numbers are revealed to be correct, the number of hours since was right and the colour of the persons underwear was right. To top that off, two number plates were brought out, which had the lotto numbers on them. Two pedastals were then put in the middle of the stage, people were standing around the pedastal, two people hugged the pedastals and a giant curtain was draped around the top of the pedastals and 5 seconds later it was taken away revealing what probably was the car the grandfather wanted. It was a pretty amazing reveal, seeing a whole car in the middle of the stage.
And just to prove it was real, Copperfield jumped into the car and turned it on.
[Prediction plot can be worked out. Car reveal can be speculated upon but otherwise I have no idea]
At some point he showed a video of one of his escapes, the one where he hangs upsidedown, escaping from a straitjacket held by a burning rope, dangling above flaming spikes. He makes it and escapes.
Throughout the show, one two occasions a duck walks across the stage, interrupting Copperfield as he talks to the crowd. Well, now it was time for the duck to do his trick.
Here's a video of the effect, saving me from explaining it.
I will say that it's cool how the spectator joins in and does the slow motion run too, which always happens. The only difference between this one and the one I saw was the "other" duck "pee'd" on the crowd as he made it's way to the bucket.
[The duck can teleport]
The floating paper/rose was next. And the internet has a video of this too!
When Copperfield started to fold the paper into a rose I was all "Noooo!" because I wanted to do that for Rose, but now she's seen Copperfield do it first. Oh well, I'll still do it anyway, eventually.
[I have an idea how its done, and should learn to do it, and to do it as well as Copperfield]
The fan illusion was something I had read a bit about. I read that someone got injured during the illusion (one of Copperfield's people) so I was interested to see this illusion.
Basically, a giant fan is shown, from side on a platform is on one side. Copperfield walks through the fan, but doesn't appear out the other side. Rather, he decides to appear in the middle of the crowd, on top of a box with fans to blow the amazement around. This illusion made me go "Woah!", mainly because he appeared in the section infront of me so it was pretty close.
I like how a lot of people went to look at the box after the show to see if there was anything but nup, just a normal box with fans.
[Either Copperfield knows inta-teleportation or there was a double involved, you take your pick]
Pretending to finish the show he goes off stage, only to return to do his final illusion, which was awesome. Grey balls are thrown into the crowd, thirteen in total. I was hoping to catch one but didn't get close at all. Some people are seated on the stage to keep an eye on things and the rest are directed to sit on a platform with seats. A curtain is draped around the platform with the people and they are given torches to shine while seated. After shining their torches for a while they all turn off, the curtain is taken away and they are all gone! Copperfield points into the crowd and all those people who disappeared are standing behind the section I'm in waving their torches about. A very magical ending to the show indeed.
[At some point the people disappear and make their way to the back, but how they disappeared I've no clue, so awesome]
Overall it was a good show and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It went for an hour and a half which is pretty good timing, but I would've liked it to go a bit longer. Makes me want to be a magician!
Here's the basic gist of what happened and just for fun how I think it happened, or didn't happen.
We (Rose and I) got floor seats, my parents got Bronze seats and they found us before we could find them so we lost that "Where's Wally" type game. Come 8pm or so the show starts with a video montage of Copperfield in the media ending with him coming out to our applause.
He started off with a simple cross arm twisting thing that everyone did, I'm sure some of you know the
little trick.
[Anyone can do this]
Next he did a steel plate penetration effect. The basic look of the effect is like a bunk bed, Copperfield lies on the bottom bunk, when the bunk above him is a steel plate that is basically infront of his face by a few cm's. A cloth is spread across the bunk bed and slowly, but surely Copperfield wakes up, going through the steel plate to standing on the steel plate.
[No idea how it's done, but I think Copperfield has the power to go through objects]
The cool thing about the show was Copperfield interaction with the crowd, getting us to clap and walking through the crowd to pick someone to go on stage with him and the next effect was one that required a ring, so of course he picked a girl. Showing a tiny baby shoe he put that into his back pocket after it has been examined by the girl and then took the girl's ring, joked about how cheap it was then made it disappear, only to have it reappear in his tiny little shoe in his back pocket, trapped in the loop of the shoe lace. Untieing the shoe lace, the ring was returned to the girl free of charge.
[Copperfield mucked up the trick the first time, and had to do it again, but I don't think anyone noticed. I know how this one is done, but I'm not telling how, just incase one day I want to do something similar]
The next illusion involved borrowing a shiny red tie from one of the audience members. With hundreds of shows done, there always seems to be someone in the first few rows who happens to wear a shiny red tie. This illusion was a fun one, making the tie dance around on its own, singing along to the song played, putting the tie into a box, having it continue to sing and dance with no one touching it, it was fun to watch. In the end three other ties pop out of a box and sing and dance before jumping out of the box, dying in the process and the shiny red tie is returned to the person who wore it after the song is over.
[I think most people have a good idea how this is done (magical strings), but I just loved how well the tie was being manipulated]
Next was a card trick! Picking two women from the crowd Copperfield pulled out a scorpion in a box and made one of the women hold the box, freaking her out to our amusement. After some teasing, trying to make the other woman touch the scorpion he had her pick a card, lost the card into the deck, had her shuffle the deck and then made a fan with the cards, picked up the scorpion with his barehands and lowered it onto the fan. The scorpion then managed to pick the right card with it's pincers. Quite cool.
[The scorpion was taught very well]
Next was an illusion, one I really liked because it was extremely visual. Getting into a box, with his head, feet and hands the only things you can see Copperfield shrinks himself down so just a head, small box, hands and feet. After which the platform is revolved to show how small he is. A very cool illusion. He then made a joke about John Howard and how short he was but got a "oooooh" reaction from the crowd to which he replied "Thats what they told me to say".
[Copperfield is a robot, that can shrink]
The longest part of the night would be the Grandfather prediction. Telling a story about his grandfather and how he played lotto and wanted a fancy car he attempts to have us predict those numbers, along with two other things. All throughout the night there was a briefcase hanging infront of the stage, which contains those predictions, so now we're about to find out if Copperfield is right.
3 people chose 2 different double digit numbers, resulting in 6 numbers (for lotto), someone was asked to specify a time for when he last was uh..in bed and I think the last person said what colour underwear they were wearing. The briefcase is opened, showing a piece of paper and a tape, playing the tape the numbers are revealed to be correct, the number of hours since was right and the colour of the persons underwear was right. To top that off, two number plates were brought out, which had the lotto numbers on them. Two pedastals were then put in the middle of the stage, people were standing around the pedastal, two people hugged the pedastals and a giant curtain was draped around the top of the pedastals and 5 seconds later it was taken away revealing what probably was the car the grandfather wanted. It was a pretty amazing reveal, seeing a whole car in the middle of the stage.
And just to prove it was real, Copperfield jumped into the car and turned it on.
[Prediction plot can be worked out. Car reveal can be speculated upon but otherwise I have no idea]
At some point he showed a video of one of his escapes, the one where he hangs upsidedown, escaping from a straitjacket held by a burning rope, dangling above flaming spikes. He makes it and escapes.
Throughout the show, one two occasions a duck walks across the stage, interrupting Copperfield as he talks to the crowd. Well, now it was time for the duck to do his trick.
Here's a video of the effect, saving me from explaining it.
I will say that it's cool how the spectator joins in and does the slow motion run too, which always happens. The only difference between this one and the one I saw was the "other" duck "pee'd" on the crowd as he made it's way to the bucket.
[The duck can teleport]
The floating paper/rose was next. And the internet has a video of this too!
When Copperfield started to fold the paper into a rose I was all "Noooo!" because I wanted to do that for Rose, but now she's seen Copperfield do it first. Oh well, I'll still do it anyway, eventually.
[I have an idea how its done, and should learn to do it, and to do it as well as Copperfield]
The fan illusion was something I had read a bit about. I read that someone got injured during the illusion (one of Copperfield's people) so I was interested to see this illusion.
Basically, a giant fan is shown, from side on a platform is on one side. Copperfield walks through the fan, but doesn't appear out the other side. Rather, he decides to appear in the middle of the crowd, on top of a box with fans to blow the amazement around. This illusion made me go "Woah!", mainly because he appeared in the section infront of me so it was pretty close.
I like how a lot of people went to look at the box after the show to see if there was anything but nup, just a normal box with fans.
[Either Copperfield knows inta-teleportation or there was a double involved, you take your pick]
Pretending to finish the show he goes off stage, only to return to do his final illusion, which was awesome. Grey balls are thrown into the crowd, thirteen in total. I was hoping to catch one but didn't get close at all. Some people are seated on the stage to keep an eye on things and the rest are directed to sit on a platform with seats. A curtain is draped around the platform with the people and they are given torches to shine while seated. After shining their torches for a while they all turn off, the curtain is taken away and they are all gone! Copperfield points into the crowd and all those people who disappeared are standing behind the section I'm in waving their torches about. A very magical ending to the show indeed.
[At some point the people disappear and make their way to the back, but how they disappeared I've no clue, so awesome]
Overall it was a good show and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It went for an hour and a half which is pretty good timing, but I would've liked it to go a bit longer. Makes me want to be a magician!
Thursday, August 13, 2009
My Second BJJ Competition
On Sunday the 2nd of August 2009 I entered my second BJJ competition.
I would've entered more during the year but wasn't able to due to various things such as no free Sundays. But finally I've got a free Sunday and used it to enter this competition to see how I've improved (or not) over the last year since my last competition.
One thing that changed was my weight, I could no longer enter in the under 61kg division and had to step up to the 61 to 67kg division, a tough division. So I was happy I gained weight, now I just need to gain weight so I'm in the top of the division (ie. 67kg) and have that slight weight advantage.
All I knew about my matchup was the name of the person I would be wrestling in the first round. There were 16 people in my round, so to come first I'd have to beat 4 people, a very tiring feat, considering that after my first and only round in my first competition I was so tired I couldn't hold a bottle properly, though that could also be attributed to not warming up beforehand.
This time I did warm up.
We were ushered into the marshalling area where we were to wait for our name to be called out. We were also told we were not allowed to wear a shirt or rashguard underneath our gi's or a cup, so I had to rush to the bathroom to remove my cup, putting myself in more than enough danger.
I was a bit nervous too, I think it was because of the whole unknown thing, not knowing who it was I was wrestling or when I would be, so I found it hard to put my mouthguard in my mouth, almost gagging each time I go to put it in. Eventually I got it in my mouth so I just kept it in there, and waited until I was called up.
So I was called up and 30 seconds later, came back out as I lost to a rear naked choke, which feels a lot worse than it sounds. I was quite disappointed as in the weeks prior during training while wrestling I would often give up my back to my opponents and then proceed to escape. Unfortunately in competition, people tend to go all out and give it all when they wrestle, and when someone's arms are around your neck choking you out with all their might, unless you counter it, or feel like passing out, you gotta tap. The thing I didn't like most is that I knew how to defend against the choke, but never did it, I only knew from watching the UFC, but now I know for sure how to defend it.
The next competition is on November 8, the Sunday after all my assessments are done so I'll be pretty stressless. I plan to enter and get pass the first round this time.
There's also another competition in September at Sydney Uni which I might enter for the heck of it, to get competition experience. Either way, my BJJ record is now 1-1, can't let it go below 50%!
The camera man saved me from a visual embarrassment, even though I would've liked to see his grip around my head....
I would've entered more during the year but wasn't able to due to various things such as no free Sundays. But finally I've got a free Sunday and used it to enter this competition to see how I've improved (or not) over the last year since my last competition.
One thing that changed was my weight, I could no longer enter in the under 61kg division and had to step up to the 61 to 67kg division, a tough division. So I was happy I gained weight, now I just need to gain weight so I'm in the top of the division (ie. 67kg) and have that slight weight advantage.
All I knew about my matchup was the name of the person I would be wrestling in the first round. There were 16 people in my round, so to come first I'd have to beat 4 people, a very tiring feat, considering that after my first and only round in my first competition I was so tired I couldn't hold a bottle properly, though that could also be attributed to not warming up beforehand.
This time I did warm up.
We were ushered into the marshalling area where we were to wait for our name to be called out. We were also told we were not allowed to wear a shirt or rashguard underneath our gi's or a cup, so I had to rush to the bathroom to remove my cup, putting myself in more than enough danger.
I was a bit nervous too, I think it was because of the whole unknown thing, not knowing who it was I was wrestling or when I would be, so I found it hard to put my mouthguard in my mouth, almost gagging each time I go to put it in. Eventually I got it in my mouth so I just kept it in there, and waited until I was called up.
So I was called up and 30 seconds later, came back out as I lost to a rear naked choke, which feels a lot worse than it sounds. I was quite disappointed as in the weeks prior during training while wrestling I would often give up my back to my opponents and then proceed to escape. Unfortunately in competition, people tend to go all out and give it all when they wrestle, and when someone's arms are around your neck choking you out with all their might, unless you counter it, or feel like passing out, you gotta tap. The thing I didn't like most is that I knew how to defend against the choke, but never did it, I only knew from watching the UFC, but now I know for sure how to defend it.
The next competition is on November 8, the Sunday after all my assessments are done so I'll be pretty stressless. I plan to enter and get pass the first round this time.
There's also another competition in September at Sydney Uni which I might enter for the heck of it, to get competition experience. Either way, my BJJ record is now 1-1, can't let it go below 50%!
The camera man saved me from a visual embarrassment, even though I would've liked to see his grip around my head....
Saturday, July 18, 2009
My Year One
As of the 17th of July, 2009, it has now been a year since I first proclaimed my interest in Rose and persuaded her to try her hand at the relationship game, which introduced me to the relationship game also and has been both fun and challenging to take part in, but so totally worth it.
I look forward to what the future holds as we strive to remain focused on God in our relationship, and would have to say this has been our best year...so far.
Picture from our very first date, a year ago now, never had I done so much organising for one person.
I look forward to what the future holds as we strive to remain focused on God in our relationship, and would have to say this has been our best year...so far.
Picture from our very first date, a year ago now, never had I done so much organising for one person.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
My New Slippers
I got new slippers!
I've been needing new ones for a while, especially since the ones I had were falling apart, as you can see in the picture below...
My new slippers look better and feel better. If I took a photo of me wearing them you wouldn't be able to see Homer's face. Me thinks his face is going to dissapear after a while as my heel continues to dig into his head day after day.
I've been needing new ones for a while, especially since the ones I had were falling apart, as you can see in the picture below...
My new slippers look better and feel better. If I took a photo of me wearing them you wouldn't be able to see Homer's face. Me thinks his face is going to dissapear after a while as my heel continues to dig into his head day after day.
Monday, June 1, 2009
My 3D Animation
This semester for our Advanced 3D Animation class we had to create a 3D animation, of course.
We also had another subject (Graphic Visualisation) which involved creating our own character and making a sculpture/model of it, drawing up a concept design and making an animatic for it. I finished all that last week which felt good to finally present it all.
I ended up using the same character I created for both that Graphic Visualisation and my 3D animation subject, it just worked out that way for me. Some would call it cheap, I'd call it, fleshing out my character more.
The character's name is Slink, a robot with springs for arms and legs (forearms, calves), hence the name Slink. He basically has limited knowledge of the world and learns as he goes, often getting himself into trouble, but due to his nature, is able to get away from any trouble, most of the time. Below is the concept design for the Graphic Visualisation subject, unfortunately my Wacom Bamboo's sensitivity decided to die on me which is apparently a Windows XP problem when I searched it up. So my concept design looks like it was done in paint, but I maintained that I went for a cartoony look.
It's basically Slink in the city, being lost and such. My animatic was taken from my storyboard I did for my 3D animation class, just tightened up and shortened and ended up being 15 seconds long so when I presented it, it flew by fast while everyone else's animatics were up to a minute long, even longer for some.
Below is Slink in 3D! Chucking a pose, from the look of that pose, what sort of character would you say he is?
Finally, my 3D animation, which I spent ages doing, first modelling the character and rigging him, creating his environment and finally animating. When I started animating I realised my rig failed on me, giving me a weird glitch with his leg springs. So I had to limit the amount of walking he does, and the view you have of him walking to keep it looking decent. That also means this is a once of character in terms of large movements unless I fix it, but I think that'll involve re-doing him. I'll leave that for another time.
Animating took probably 3 nights total, with very late nights, sleeping later and later each night to get it completed. But I timed things out well and finished animating on Friday night, leaving Saturday to render everything and find sound effects/music to edit it all together. Come Sunday I put it all together, with sound effects (recorded the walking sound effects myself as I couldn't find what I wanted online) and showed it off to a couple of people, after their comments I decided to add an extra ending, and animated another 7 seconds of animation, which took....around 2 hours to do then edited onto the video and rendered it all out and now, what was to be a 30 second clip originally is now a 1 minute short film. I think it could've been better but I'm happy with what I've done, considering my first attempt was horrible compared to this. And with that I'm done for the semester, I plan to muck around with 3D during the holidays in preparation for next semester's two 3D animation subjects.
And now, for your entertainment, Slink at the Museum...
Uploaded it to youtube for better viewing than on this small video thing.
We also had another subject (Graphic Visualisation) which involved creating our own character and making a sculpture/model of it, drawing up a concept design and making an animatic for it. I finished all that last week which felt good to finally present it all.
I ended up using the same character I created for both that Graphic Visualisation and my 3D animation subject, it just worked out that way for me. Some would call it cheap, I'd call it, fleshing out my character more.
The character's name is Slink, a robot with springs for arms and legs (forearms, calves), hence the name Slink. He basically has limited knowledge of the world and learns as he goes, often getting himself into trouble, but due to his nature, is able to get away from any trouble, most of the time. Below is the concept design for the Graphic Visualisation subject, unfortunately my Wacom Bamboo's sensitivity decided to die on me which is apparently a Windows XP problem when I searched it up. So my concept design looks like it was done in paint, but I maintained that I went for a cartoony look.
It's basically Slink in the city, being lost and such. My animatic was taken from my storyboard I did for my 3D animation class, just tightened up and shortened and ended up being 15 seconds long so when I presented it, it flew by fast while everyone else's animatics were up to a minute long, even longer for some.
Below is Slink in 3D! Chucking a pose, from the look of that pose, what sort of character would you say he is?
Finally, my 3D animation, which I spent ages doing, first modelling the character and rigging him, creating his environment and finally animating. When I started animating I realised my rig failed on me, giving me a weird glitch with his leg springs. So I had to limit the amount of walking he does, and the view you have of him walking to keep it looking decent. That also means this is a once of character in terms of large movements unless I fix it, but I think that'll involve re-doing him. I'll leave that for another time.
Animating took probably 3 nights total, with very late nights, sleeping later and later each night to get it completed. But I timed things out well and finished animating on Friday night, leaving Saturday to render everything and find sound effects/music to edit it all together. Come Sunday I put it all together, with sound effects (recorded the walking sound effects myself as I couldn't find what I wanted online) and showed it off to a couple of people, after their comments I decided to add an extra ending, and animated another 7 seconds of animation, which took....around 2 hours to do then edited onto the video and rendered it all out and now, what was to be a 30 second clip originally is now a 1 minute short film. I think it could've been better but I'm happy with what I've done, considering my first attempt was horrible compared to this. And with that I'm done for the semester, I plan to muck around with 3D during the holidays in preparation for next semester's two 3D animation subjects.
And now, for your entertainment, Slink at the Museum...
Uploaded it to youtube for better viewing than on this small video thing.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
My Window of Accidents
It all started off with a *crash*, a sound I've heard many a time before. My instant reaction is to walk to my window and look at what happened, and most times its a car crash.
Well today, another crash occured, between two cars no less and most times it's always the same position outside my house so I always know where to look.
It's also ironic to me that so many car accidents happen there, since there's a speed camera to slow people down, but even at slow speeds cars can still go smashy smashy.
Here's a picture of the crash. Look how loving the cars are, resting their proverbial heads against one another. But that's not always the case. (never the case actually) Soon enough the police get called in to scope things out and contain traffic if needed and in some cases, these are needed...
An ambulance! I think a person in the passenger seat got hurt, but didn't really need the help after all as the ambulance left soon after it came. Tow trucks are always involved, in moving the cars out of the way and into the street where the ambulance is.
Right now the police are still talking with the people, the cars are being towed and its also raining.
The fun is over for me and there is nothing interesting to see anymore.
The biggest crash I've seen outside my house involved many police cars, one or two ambulances and two or three firetrucks and it was all outside my house. Lucky I didn't need to go out because that would've been impossible as they all took up our driveways and everything to rescue some poor person trapped inside their car. I think it was raining that night too...
I think the rain plays a part in these car crashes so until next time it rains, drive safely and don't drive outside my house!
Well today, another crash occured, between two cars no less and most times it's always the same position outside my house so I always know where to look.
It's also ironic to me that so many car accidents happen there, since there's a speed camera to slow people down, but even at slow speeds cars can still go smashy smashy.
Here's a picture of the crash. Look how loving the cars are, resting their proverbial heads against one another. But that's not always the case. (never the case actually) Soon enough the police get called in to scope things out and contain traffic if needed and in some cases, these are needed...
An ambulance! I think a person in the passenger seat got hurt, but didn't really need the help after all as the ambulance left soon after it came. Tow trucks are always involved, in moving the cars out of the way and into the street where the ambulance is.
Right now the police are still talking with the people, the cars are being towed and its also raining.
The fun is over for me and there is nothing interesting to see anymore.
The biggest crash I've seen outside my house involved many police cars, one or two ambulances and two or three firetrucks and it was all outside my house. Lucky I didn't need to go out because that would've been impossible as they all took up our driveways and everything to rescue some poor person trapped inside their car. I think it was raining that night too...
I think the rain plays a part in these car crashes so until next time it rains, drive safely and don't drive outside my house!
Saturday, May 16, 2009
My Rib's Fine
Two weeks later and my ribs are fine, after a week I actually forgot about it and no longer felt pain.
And since that's all I've really got to say I'll use this opportunity to update both you and I about whats happening.
My University timetable have been primarily night classes, meaning I've had to miss out on my training, so I've taken 2 months off from that to save myself money, and will get back to training in June. I'd like to gain more weight over the next year so that when I enter competitions I'll be in the heavier side of the weight range, and have a slight weight advantage, with my long leg advantage I still have to develop. I'm hoping to get my Blue belt this year, but that can only happen if I enter competitions and do well with them, unfortunately most (if not all) competitions run on a Sunday....
...Which brings me to my next update. I'm still looking for someone to help me with powerpoint work at church (Cabramatta Anglican Church), I've only had a handful of real breaks in the last....2-3 years? (2 in the 2008) One of which I've used to enter a BJJ competition, but this year alone I've already had to miss 4 competitions, with one on tomorrow which I won't be able to go to, but I wouldn't have gone anyway because I'm in no shape to take on anyone now.
So I've got to continue to pray for that, and open my eyes to the opportunities present.
I'm still doing children's ministry at CAC, which is wonderful, teaching kids about God and Jesus and see them grow in the knowledge and learning. I often wonder how long I'll be doing this for.
University life is fine, I've actually got a proper group of friends, something I didn't properly have in the last 3 years at UTS doing my IT degree. Uni work is fun, but tough and requires a lot of time. Next year is going to be trying whether I'll be taking a year to do my final project or 6 months, after which I'll have to start looking for work. Either way it's something I'm looking forward to.
Things are looking up, my rib's fine, I just have to remain positive, trust God and move forward, twirling and twirling!
And since that's all I've really got to say I'll use this opportunity to update both you and I about whats happening.
My University timetable have been primarily night classes, meaning I've had to miss out on my training, so I've taken 2 months off from that to save myself money, and will get back to training in June. I'd like to gain more weight over the next year so that when I enter competitions I'll be in the heavier side of the weight range, and have a slight weight advantage, with my long leg advantage I still have to develop. I'm hoping to get my Blue belt this year, but that can only happen if I enter competitions and do well with them, unfortunately most (if not all) competitions run on a Sunday....
...Which brings me to my next update. I'm still looking for someone to help me with powerpoint work at church (Cabramatta Anglican Church), I've only had a handful of real breaks in the last....2-3 years? (2 in the 2008) One of which I've used to enter a BJJ competition, but this year alone I've already had to miss 4 competitions, with one on tomorrow which I won't be able to go to, but I wouldn't have gone anyway because I'm in no shape to take on anyone now.
So I've got to continue to pray for that, and open my eyes to the opportunities present.
I'm still doing children's ministry at CAC, which is wonderful, teaching kids about God and Jesus and see them grow in the knowledge and learning. I often wonder how long I'll be doing this for.
University life is fine, I've actually got a proper group of friends, something I didn't properly have in the last 3 years at UTS doing my IT degree. Uni work is fun, but tough and requires a lot of time. Next year is going to be trying whether I'll be taking a year to do my final project or 6 months, after which I'll have to start looking for work. Either way it's something I'm looking forward to.
Things are looking up, my rib's fine, I just have to remain positive, trust God and move forward, twirling and twirling!
Saturday, May 2, 2009
My Rib Hurts
Doing BJJ (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu) is a dangerous sport, like any other contact sport you can get hurt and/or injured. While at training, we had a guy who broke his arm while wrestling, and amazingly he didn't scream in pain like I would and had to go to the hospital, needless to say I don't think he came back.
I've seen people get choked out to the point of blacking out, which is pretty funny seeing a person go limp, and then recover later not knowing what had happened. I once nearly blacked out, but managed to tap out, leading to the other guy letting go of my head and all the oxygen and blood rushed back to my brain and for a moment I didn't know where I was but regained my composure only to tap out again moments later.
I've seen guys get hurt in their downstairs area, which, as painful as it is, is also amusing. I once accidentally landed right onto a friend I was wrestling and I've never seen a person leap so high from his back in pain before, it reminded me of pro wrestling and how they take bumps, but to see it happen in person was hilarious even though he was in extreme pain. That's why I wear a cup, to avoid these things.
Anyways, last week on Thursday I was wrestling a friend who is better and heavier than me, and while wrestling he wound up on top in mount, which is one of the best positions for him to be in, and worst positions for me to be in. He transferred to what is called "Rodeo Mount" where his legs would extend out so he's fully sitting on you, like a cowboy sits on a bull, trying to control him. I knew I was going to lose pretty soon, but I tried to escape anyway and decided to buck him and try to roll him over, all I succeeded in doing was bucking him up into the air for a second, and like a persistent cowboy came back down on my chest and essentially sat on my ribs, particularly my left side of my ribs. So I was in major pain, following the round I didn't wrestle anymore, went home and iced my chest down.
Come Tuesday my rib is still bothering me, it's sticking out more on my left side (where it hurts) than on my right side, so that's not normal. So I go to see the doctor, but due to the mass amount of other people waiting, I end up going to Wednesday.
The doctor checks out my rib and prescribes an X-Ray for me, which I went to take after seeing the doctor. Getting an X-Ray was interesting, I was expecting to lie down on a bed while a machine X-Ray's me but instead I had to stand up against a wall thing and breathe in, breathe out and even stop breathing for the lady to X-ray me. Having a female do it was slightly awkward for a bit, being a bit self conscious of being topless while some lady takes pictures of your bones, that's going way deep...
Come Friday I pick up my X-Rays and then see the doctor so he can look at them. Fearing a fractured rib, he told me that I was okay, and that it was just tissue damage, or something like that, but having said that he told me "X-ray's may not pick up everything", so I had to keep an eye on it and in two weeks if it's still hurting come back for another X-ray.
Right now my rib hurts, but hopefully it'll heal itself like Wolverine (go go current blockbuster movie reference) very soon. Let's see how I go in two weeks time...now where's that ice pack.
I've seen people get choked out to the point of blacking out, which is pretty funny seeing a person go limp, and then recover later not knowing what had happened. I once nearly blacked out, but managed to tap out, leading to the other guy letting go of my head and all the oxygen and blood rushed back to my brain and for a moment I didn't know where I was but regained my composure only to tap out again moments later.
I've seen guys get hurt in their downstairs area, which, as painful as it is, is also amusing. I once accidentally landed right onto a friend I was wrestling and I've never seen a person leap so high from his back in pain before, it reminded me of pro wrestling and how they take bumps, but to see it happen in person was hilarious even though he was in extreme pain. That's why I wear a cup, to avoid these things.
Anyways, last week on Thursday I was wrestling a friend who is better and heavier than me, and while wrestling he wound up on top in mount, which is one of the best positions for him to be in, and worst positions for me to be in. He transferred to what is called "Rodeo Mount" where his legs would extend out so he's fully sitting on you, like a cowboy sits on a bull, trying to control him. I knew I was going to lose pretty soon, but I tried to escape anyway and decided to buck him and try to roll him over, all I succeeded in doing was bucking him up into the air for a second, and like a persistent cowboy came back down on my chest and essentially sat on my ribs, particularly my left side of my ribs. So I was in major pain, following the round I didn't wrestle anymore, went home and iced my chest down.
Come Tuesday my rib is still bothering me, it's sticking out more on my left side (where it hurts) than on my right side, so that's not normal. So I go to see the doctor, but due to the mass amount of other people waiting, I end up going to Wednesday.
The doctor checks out my rib and prescribes an X-Ray for me, which I went to take after seeing the doctor. Getting an X-Ray was interesting, I was expecting to lie down on a bed while a machine X-Ray's me but instead I had to stand up against a wall thing and breathe in, breathe out and even stop breathing for the lady to X-ray me. Having a female do it was slightly awkward for a bit, being a bit self conscious of being topless while some lady takes pictures of your bones, that's going way deep...
Come Friday I pick up my X-Rays and then see the doctor so he can look at them. Fearing a fractured rib, he told me that I was okay, and that it was just tissue damage, or something like that, but having said that he told me "X-ray's may not pick up everything", so I had to keep an eye on it and in two weeks if it's still hurting come back for another X-ray.
Right now my rib hurts, but hopefully it'll heal itself like Wolverine (go go current blockbuster movie reference) very soon. Let's see how I go in two weeks time...now where's that ice pack.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
My Wacom Bamboo
SYC blog will be on pause for now due to not finding adequate time to blog about it and do it justice.
So I'll be continuing random blogging for now until I find such time, hopefully my memory will remember enough of it to blog!
Anyways, I've started my Masters (of Animation) which is very arty in nature and quite different from when I did my IT degree but I'm loving it so far. My brother found a second hand Wacom Bamboo tablet for cheap and I figured it'd be good to get one for the course, and for life!
So I got the Wacom Bamboo MTE-450k, and though that may not mean anything to you in name, it means nothing to me too, so here's a picture to show you what it looks like!
So I'll be continuing random blogging for now until I find such time, hopefully my memory will remember enough of it to blog!
Anyways, I've started my Masters (of Animation) which is very arty in nature and quite different from when I did my IT degree but I'm loving it so far. My brother found a second hand Wacom Bamboo tablet for cheap and I figured it'd be good to get one for the course, and for life!
So I got the Wacom Bamboo MTE-450k, and though that may not mean anything to you in name, it means nothing to me too, so here's a picture to show you what it looks like!
And here's a picture that I rotoscoped to test out my new technical toy!
Lookin' good
Lookin' good
Thursday, February 12, 2009
SYC 09' - Day 1 (Part 1/2)
Bryan's alarm went off at 7am, so he could run in the morning, I'd rather stay asleep, and did so so I don't know if he did go run or not.
Eventually, everyone got up and either showered or went to breakfast, I stayed in bed, resting my eyes for as long as possible before getting up to shower myself. Packed my bag, then had breakfast, I had weetbix with sugar, and milk of course. We then had to move all our luggage out of our rooms so the cleaners could come and clean up before the youth arrive, meaning we slept in dirty rooms/beds...that explains the dirty shower...
We had another meeting, outlining the days events and what was to come, such as who was going to be in our cabins, then had our own little meetings in our groups before mingling around before the youth arrived! I got an sms from my sister saying the bus driver didn't know where our location was, which was both worrying and comforting, because we (leaders) needed time to prepare stuff.
At some time, after 11am, the first bus (from Cabramatta) arrived, with a van leading the way. Once again the leaders rushed onto the balcony to wave our hands, yell at the bus (I don't think they could hear us) and just get excited. We tried to get the bus to honk its horn like last year but that didn't come to fruition, I blame the lack of horn pulling action by us and the driver who didn't like fun (note: he may have liked fun, I just can't confirm). We welcome the kids and have them proceed to register, paying and receiving their name tag. Eventually the second bus (from Hurstville) came, and that bus also failed to honk its horn, meaning we had a SYC with no bus horn!
We mingled with all the kids while they registered, getting to know them and all. I was looking for the kids in my cabin, who were from Hurstville, a change from last year where I had Cabra kids, and things were fairly easy as I had a co-leader with me. But due to the large number of youth this year, many leaders had to go solo, so to say anxious and nervous would be quite a feat for a toddler, and thats what I felt like (anxious and nervous).
I found my youth and had them bring their luggage to our room, thinking about what to say, what they thought of me, suprised I had one more youth than planned and hoping they weren't crazy troublemakers. They turned out fine, or so I thought, but more about that tonight...
We all gathered together to go through the rules of the place as told by our Youthworks friend Tom, then other orientation type things to get through and before you knew it, it was lunch time, which was bread rolls, with either sliced ham or sliced chicken with salad and all that healthy stuff. I had two!
Following lunch was "Get to know you" games, so the youth could get to know each other, the games were "Name Name", where you call out a persons name twice to avoid being whacked with a pillow, "Build-up scissors/paper/rock", where you play until there's two people left to determine the champion, "Big wind blows", a variation of the fruit salad concept, "Bang", a game involving shooting each other, "Get to know your leaders", a game for each cabin to ask their leaders as many questions as they want, the strangest question I got was "Do you own a fridge?" and finally "Name Bingo", a more active version of Bingo involving interests, rather than numbers. Of course there's more to these games than my brief descriptions but I just wanted to keep things short.
Also of note is that Monday was hot, so at some point during these games we took a break so kids wouldn't get suffocated or melt inside the hall. After the "Get to know you" games it was time for Wide Games (the games you play outside), but due to the extreme heat we had to do a bit of re-planning and temporarily cancel Wide Games and play some of our Evening Activity games in its place. We played "Construction!", a game involving a lot of newspaper, we broke up into 8 teams and our aim was to construct a free-standing building made out of newspaper and tape that could fit our team, or as much of our team as possible, and we would be awarded points based on how many people we could fit.
This is an example of how successful you can be with good design, fitting your whole team together, making them feel like part of a refugee camp (their joke, not mine).
Eventually, everyone got up and either showered or went to breakfast, I stayed in bed, resting my eyes for as long as possible before getting up to shower myself. Packed my bag, then had breakfast, I had weetbix with sugar, and milk of course. We then had to move all our luggage out of our rooms so the cleaners could come and clean up before the youth arrive, meaning we slept in dirty rooms/beds...that explains the dirty shower...
We had another meeting, outlining the days events and what was to come, such as who was going to be in our cabins, then had our own little meetings in our groups before mingling around before the youth arrived! I got an sms from my sister saying the bus driver didn't know where our location was, which was both worrying and comforting, because we (leaders) needed time to prepare stuff.
At some time, after 11am, the first bus (from Cabramatta) arrived, with a van leading the way. Once again the leaders rushed onto the balcony to wave our hands, yell at the bus (I don't think they could hear us) and just get excited. We tried to get the bus to honk its horn like last year but that didn't come to fruition, I blame the lack of horn pulling action by us and the driver who didn't like fun (note: he may have liked fun, I just can't confirm). We welcome the kids and have them proceed to register, paying and receiving their name tag. Eventually the second bus (from Hurstville) came, and that bus also failed to honk its horn, meaning we had a SYC with no bus horn!
We mingled with all the kids while they registered, getting to know them and all. I was looking for the kids in my cabin, who were from Hurstville, a change from last year where I had Cabra kids, and things were fairly easy as I had a co-leader with me. But due to the large number of youth this year, many leaders had to go solo, so to say anxious and nervous would be quite a feat for a toddler, and thats what I felt like (anxious and nervous).
I found my youth and had them bring their luggage to our room, thinking about what to say, what they thought of me, suprised I had one more youth than planned and hoping they weren't crazy troublemakers. They turned out fine, or so I thought, but more about that tonight...
We all gathered together to go through the rules of the place as told by our Youthworks friend Tom, then other orientation type things to get through and before you knew it, it was lunch time, which was bread rolls, with either sliced ham or sliced chicken with salad and all that healthy stuff. I had two!
Following lunch was "Get to know you" games, so the youth could get to know each other, the games were "Name Name", where you call out a persons name twice to avoid being whacked with a pillow, "Build-up scissors/paper/rock", where you play until there's two people left to determine the champion, "Big wind blows", a variation of the fruit salad concept, "Bang", a game involving shooting each other, "Get to know your leaders", a game for each cabin to ask their leaders as many questions as they want, the strangest question I got was "Do you own a fridge?" and finally "Name Bingo", a more active version of Bingo involving interests, rather than numbers. Of course there's more to these games than my brief descriptions but I just wanted to keep things short.
Also of note is that Monday was hot, so at some point during these games we took a break so kids wouldn't get suffocated or melt inside the hall. After the "Get to know you" games it was time for Wide Games (the games you play outside), but due to the extreme heat we had to do a bit of re-planning and temporarily cancel Wide Games and play some of our Evening Activity games in its place. We played "Construction!", a game involving a lot of newspaper, we broke up into 8 teams and our aim was to construct a free-standing building made out of newspaper and tape that could fit our team, or as much of our team as possible, and we would be awarded points based on how many people we could fit.
This is an example of how successful you can be with good design, fitting your whole team together, making them feel like part of a refugee camp (their joke, not mine).
And this is an example of what happens when you have bad design, a last minute rush to save it, resulting in an absolute collapse, leaving you to salvage whats left and earning as many points as you possibly now can...
Having now trashed a few rooms with newspaper everywhere we retreated back to the hall to announce the winners, then we had free time until dinner at 6pm. We had chinese food, well, as chinese as Australians can get it...we had some beef dish (mongolian?) or a chicken dish with rice, hard rice though. Being hungry I had beef first, then for seconds got both beef and chicken, and skipped out on dessert because I was too full.
Stay tuned for Part 2, coming when I write it. It's gonna be a looong series....
Stay tuned for Part 2, coming when I write it. It's gonna be a looong series....
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
SYC 09' - Day 0
Another year, another SYC, another blog series! Summer Youth Camp (SYC) is run by Cabramatta Anglican Church and St Georges' Anglican Church Hurstville and a bunch of other leaders we have connections with, and Christians seem to have a lot of connections.
I probably explained back in last years SYC blog series but I'll quickly explain it again.
SYC is a camp for high schoolers, it is primarily an evangelistic camp, meaning you're gonna hear about Jesus and what He did for you, secondarily, it is a fun camp designed to tire out the youth and leaders both physically (youth) and mentally (leaders). It runs for a week, Monday to Friday and this is just my little blog series remembering all that happened from my perspective, giving you a behind the scenes look too of what a leader does for all you youth reading this so without further ado/adieu/achoo lets try and remember...
Day 0 - 4th January 2009 Sunday - My Drive Up
On Sunday the leaders usually head up to the campsite first, to set things up and get a headstart before the highschoolers come. Out meetup point is Cabramatta Anglican Church for half of the leaders. I got to church sometime between 5:30 and 6:00pm to see a few of the leaders there rushing to get the SYC booklets together, people folding, stapling and chatting.
We had to wait until evening service finished at around 6:30 before we could go and grab sound equipment, drum kit and cables to take to SYC, so we waited and waited, chatted to other leaders.
Soon enough we got to load up our cars, I had less luggage this year compared to last year so I didn't have that much to tetris into the car like last year, I had to take the drum kit, pretty much all the microphone stands, cable leads and of course people's luggage.
I'm not sure what time we left, but it was pretty late, either 7pm or sometime past that, we drove to Heathcote McDonalds for dinner, then continued towards the campsite. The theory that after eating food, you often feel sleepy is pretty true I'd say because driving after Macca's I got pretty sleepy and wanted to just nod off, so I had to keep myself up somehow, and I did so by talking to the people in my car, which always helps, to keep my mind buzzing with stuff other than the mundane long stretch of road ahead of me.
Eventually we reach the campsite, the potholes were still there like the year before and the urge to drive onto the grass utilizing my 4WD capabilities was still there like the year before but I resisted, given the darkness and not knowing when a ditch would suprise attack me. All our cars were covered in dust and dirt (mainly dirt), so people proceeded to write on each other's cars, I had DUNG written on my back window, which I left because I was too tired to clean it off. For those who don't know Dung is a sort of nickname I was given, derived from the first letter of my first name and the surname, it also has the same name as a form of feces, unfortunate I know but I've gotten used to it, new people however, aren't used to it, which produces amusing reactions when people see friends calling me "Dung", and I respond casually like its all good.
But I digress, we unloaded our cars, paid our leaders fee, mingled, then had a meeting to get things officially started, we broke up into our groups, be that evening games (games we play in the evening), wide games (games we play during the day), concert night team, music team and I think that was it. I was in the evening games team, and was allocated a "get to know you" game with another leader, trivia night and glow stick game, of which I'll write about as they happen on the corresponding days. Each year we try and play different games and this year was no different, so we had to test some of them, which we did tonight. Some of the leaders played around with straws and paddle pop sticks to protect an egg, Victor (our Evening Games leader) became our balloon sumo and took damage for our entertainment (I'll try get a video of that up when I can, inbetween working on the SYC DVD).
Afterwards, we had music practice for Monday's music, which I used to make the powerpoint for the Monday, I would've made it before but I didn't know the what the projector would be like, and where "screen" would be, but making the powerpoint was fairly quick anyway.
Eventually it got really late, and it was time for sleep, all the leaders had the boys side of the cabins to sleep in, and we could pick any room which is always fun as its the one time we can sleep with the other leaders before the youth invade...anyways, I don't know about the other leaders but the cabra boys stayed up, chatted, got to know each other better, got to know who were the scaredy cats (lame term I know) screaming at the non-ghost, talking about ministry and random stuff when we realise we should really get to sleep, our wake up time was 8am, we slept sometime past 2am...
Note: From here on out, they're gonna get longer, and I'll probably take a long time to get them all done, meaning I'll eventually forget a few more things, so apologies in advance to all those that care.
I probably explained back in last years SYC blog series but I'll quickly explain it again.
SYC is a camp for high schoolers, it is primarily an evangelistic camp, meaning you're gonna hear about Jesus and what He did for you, secondarily, it is a fun camp designed to tire out the youth and leaders both physically (youth) and mentally (leaders). It runs for a week, Monday to Friday and this is just my little blog series remembering all that happened from my perspective, giving you a behind the scenes look too of what a leader does for all you youth reading this so without further ado/adieu/achoo lets try and remember...
Day 0 - 4th January 2009 Sunday - My Drive Up
On Sunday the leaders usually head up to the campsite first, to set things up and get a headstart before the highschoolers come. Out meetup point is Cabramatta Anglican Church for half of the leaders. I got to church sometime between 5:30 and 6:00pm to see a few of the leaders there rushing to get the SYC booklets together, people folding, stapling and chatting.
We had to wait until evening service finished at around 6:30 before we could go and grab sound equipment, drum kit and cables to take to SYC, so we waited and waited, chatted to other leaders.
Soon enough we got to load up our cars, I had less luggage this year compared to last year so I didn't have that much to tetris into the car like last year, I had to take the drum kit, pretty much all the microphone stands, cable leads and of course people's luggage.
I'm not sure what time we left, but it was pretty late, either 7pm or sometime past that, we drove to Heathcote McDonalds for dinner, then continued towards the campsite. The theory that after eating food, you often feel sleepy is pretty true I'd say because driving after Macca's I got pretty sleepy and wanted to just nod off, so I had to keep myself up somehow, and I did so by talking to the people in my car, which always helps, to keep my mind buzzing with stuff other than the mundane long stretch of road ahead of me.
Eventually we reach the campsite, the potholes were still there like the year before and the urge to drive onto the grass utilizing my 4WD capabilities was still there like the year before but I resisted, given the darkness and not knowing when a ditch would suprise attack me. All our cars were covered in dust and dirt (mainly dirt), so people proceeded to write on each other's cars, I had DUNG written on my back window, which I left because I was too tired to clean it off. For those who don't know Dung is a sort of nickname I was given, derived from the first letter of my first name and the surname, it also has the same name as a form of feces, unfortunate I know but I've gotten used to it, new people however, aren't used to it, which produces amusing reactions when people see friends calling me "Dung", and I respond casually like its all good.
But I digress, we unloaded our cars, paid our leaders fee, mingled, then had a meeting to get things officially started, we broke up into our groups, be that evening games (games we play in the evening), wide games (games we play during the day), concert night team, music team and I think that was it. I was in the evening games team, and was allocated a "get to know you" game with another leader, trivia night and glow stick game, of which I'll write about as they happen on the corresponding days. Each year we try and play different games and this year was no different, so we had to test some of them, which we did tonight. Some of the leaders played around with straws and paddle pop sticks to protect an egg, Victor (our Evening Games leader) became our balloon sumo and took damage for our entertainment (I'll try get a video of that up when I can, inbetween working on the SYC DVD).
Afterwards, we had music practice for Monday's music, which I used to make the powerpoint for the Monday, I would've made it before but I didn't know the what the projector would be like, and where "screen" would be, but making the powerpoint was fairly quick anyway.
Eventually it got really late, and it was time for sleep, all the leaders had the boys side of the cabins to sleep in, and we could pick any room which is always fun as its the one time we can sleep with the other leaders before the youth invade...anyways, I don't know about the other leaders but the cabra boys stayed up, chatted, got to know each other better, got to know who were the scaredy cats (lame term I know) screaming at the non-ghost, talking about ministry and random stuff when we realise we should really get to sleep, our wake up time was 8am, we slept sometime past 2am...
Note: From here on out, they're gonna get longer, and I'll probably take a long time to get them all done, meaning I'll eventually forget a few more things, so apologies in advance to all those that care.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
My Baptism
On the 14th of December 2008, last year now, Cabramatta Anglican Church had their combined Baptism and Confirmation Service. Combined being both the Chinese and English services combining together.
Anyways, on that day I got Baptised and Confirmed, something that probably should've happened years earlier but I never felt compelled to do, or found the time to do so due to impromptu powerpoint commitments or laziness or I didn't want to do it alone or something silly.
But this year, I took the plunge and did it, albeit I notified the proper people a little late and almost didn't get baptised, but I think being at the church and a Christian for years helped in allowing me to being baptised given the late notice.
Baptism is a Sacrement, or a outward sign that a Christian does to show their faith in Jesus Christ, so baptism is just one of the sacrements that Christians do, but we only need to do it once. People are baptised in different ways, depending on your church, some like to do the full body dunk, others just sprinkle a bit of water on your head. In my case, I got the the head sprinkle, which was fine with me because I wasn't dressed to be drenched.
I never saw baptism as necessary for a Christian to do, as once you believe that Jesus died for your sins and commit your life to him and ruler you have been baptised by the Holy Spirit, so thats a spiritual baptism, as opposed to a physical baptism. That was my main reason for putting off my baptism I think, but then I saw that being baptised for all to see was a good thing to do. I'm a Christian and should not be ashamed to publically declare it, and being baptised was a good way to show not only the people at church but my friends as well that I'm a Christian, a person who doesn't just live a good life, but a Godly life, there's a difference there, a big difference.
So that will be a day for me to remember, as I honestly can't remember the day I became a Christian except that it was years and years ago, but I now can remember the day I got baptised.
Anyways, on that day I got Baptised and Confirmed, something that probably should've happened years earlier but I never felt compelled to do, or found the time to do so due to impromptu powerpoint commitments or laziness or I didn't want to do it alone or something silly.
But this year, I took the plunge and did it, albeit I notified the proper people a little late and almost didn't get baptised, but I think being at the church and a Christian for years helped in allowing me to being baptised given the late notice.
Baptism is a Sacrement, or a outward sign that a Christian does to show their faith in Jesus Christ, so baptism is just one of the sacrements that Christians do, but we only need to do it once. People are baptised in different ways, depending on your church, some like to do the full body dunk, others just sprinkle a bit of water on your head. In my case, I got the the head sprinkle, which was fine with me because I wasn't dressed to be drenched.
I never saw baptism as necessary for a Christian to do, as once you believe that Jesus died for your sins and commit your life to him and ruler you have been baptised by the Holy Spirit, so thats a spiritual baptism, as opposed to a physical baptism. That was my main reason for putting off my baptism I think, but then I saw that being baptised for all to see was a good thing to do. I'm a Christian and should not be ashamed to publically declare it, and being baptised was a good way to show not only the people at church but my friends as well that I'm a Christian, a person who doesn't just live a good life, but a Godly life, there's a difference there, a big difference.
So that will be a day for me to remember, as I honestly can't remember the day I became a Christian except that it was years and years ago, but I now can remember the day I got baptised.
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