Undergraduate Admissions

Lately, I’ve started keeping a to-do list just for general things that need doing. I don’t put things like “do homework” or “go to work” or anything like that on there, because those things are obvious and are gonna get done anyway. It’s more for things like “pay bills,” “go grocery shopping,” or “get [whatever] from [wherever].”

I started keeping this list thinking that I would actually get more things done if I wrote them down, and that is definitely true. But the unfortunate consequence is that instead of me getting everything on the list done and then being worry-free as I’d hoped, it ends up being more like a list that just always has some things on it. For whatever reason I can never totally clear out the list; there are just some things on it that I keep putting off, and when I do knock some of those things out, some more stuff comes up that I have to add to the list. It’s kinda frustrating, really. But I guess that’s just part of life as a functional adult human being.

 

I always associate certain music with certain times of year. I don’t really know why. But I enjoy it, really, because it means that when a new season rolls in, there is some music that I really like that I haven’t heard in a while. I don’t know why, but certain music just sounds better at certain times of year. Since it’s definitely starting to get cold now, I look forward to getting into some of my winter music.

Speaking of music, I think I’m going to start listing whatever I’m currently listening to at the end of posts, especially if I feel like it’s in some way meaningful to me at the time.

Passenger - I Die Slowly

I haven’t been up to anything particularly interesting lately, really.

Japanese was a little hard this week. Since we didn’t have class the week before, this week we had a lot of catching up to do! Doing my homework this weekend will seem so easy, since I’m just doing one day’s worth of homework instead of three.

I got my own washer and dryer in my apartment. It’s really convenient! I used to take my clothes to my parents’ house to do laundry once a week. Even beyond the convenience of not needing to lug everything around, it changes the way I think about what clothes I wear. I used to always think “oh, maybe I should wear this shirt… except then I won’t be able to wear it again until I do laundry two weeks from now, so nah, I’ll save it for another time.” Now I can just wantonly wear whatever I want, because I can wash whatever I want whenever I want to.

A lot of the words in the last sentence started with Ws. I didn’t do that on purpose, I swear.

I keep meaning to take pictures (just in general), but my digital camera is somewhat antiquated. It’s probably about seven years old, and it is a 1–yes, that’s right, ONE–megapixel camera. Your phone can probably take higher-resolution pictures than my camera can. I want to get a new one, but I keep dragging my feet because it seems like after I read too many reviews, I start to notice that every camera has some significant issues that I can’t ignore. There is no perfect camera. Maybe I should just settle on one. I’m sure I’ll be happy and have fun with whatever I end up getting.

Last Sunday, I went to Video Games Live. Now, maybe you like videogames a lot and know exactly what I’m talking about, but maybe you have no idea whatsoever. So, I’ll explain.

Video Games Live! is a traveling concert series where local orchestras play videogame music. There’s also pretty awesome lighting and a screen where images (often from games) are displayed. It’s a pretty interesting experience, especially if you’re someone who really likes videogames.

This concert series was first held in California and other places where there is a huge population. I was really surprised that it came to Buffalo! Even funnier is that I almost missed it. I had no idea the concert was going on until my mom asked me “if [I was] going to that videogame concert thing on Sunday” two days before it happened. If you ever think that nothing cool ever comes to Buffalo, you’re wrong!

I took a few pictures with my phone while I was there. They’re pretty low quality, but they’re still worth having, I suppose.

There were a lot of little details at the concert that I really enjoyed. For example, check out what was on the screen during intermission:

It’s kind of hard to make out, but it says “Loading Act II” and there’s a big loading progress bar. When the bar was full, intermission ended. This kind of thing, in addition to the fact that there were random people dressed up as Princess Zelda or Leon S. Kennedy, made it a really interesting experience. It was funny to be around so many videogame players all at once; it’s rare that you’re in a concert hall filled with people that, if you went up to them and asked them what their favorite Zelda game was, probably 95% of them would have a reasonable answer. When the concert was over, the guy who organized the whole thing said “See you next year!” so perhaps they’re planning to come back next year. If so, I think that would be great, especially if they had a whole new set of songs to play.

Now, for a complete non-sequitor:

Saw this in a parking lot the other day. In case you can’t make it out, it says “GRAND CHEROKEE: FREEDOM EDITION” with a nice little American flag motif. Because nothing says “freedom” and “patriotism” quite like driving a big SUV, am I right?

My Japanese teacher is in Japan this week, so class is cancelled. I never realized before how much work I put into that class. Without it, I feel like I’m barely going to school. The downside, though, is that we still have to do all the homework that would have been due this week, and I haven’t started it yet… I really should get on that so I’m not doing three classes worth of homework on Sunday night.

I have a midterm in New Asian Cinema tomorrow. I’m not too concerned, really. I go to class, I do the readings, and I watch the films… I don’t know what I could be asked that I wouldn’t be able to answer at least moderately well.

The other night, I watched the first two episodes of this season of South Park. It was kinda funny, but it almost seems like they’re trying too hard. I suppose after this many years you really have to be pushing the envelope somehow or else it would be totally stale, but I feel like there must be some better way to do this than just swearing up a storm. I mean, I don’t have a problem with swearing (really, I do it quite frequently) but I really do think there are better, more involved ways to be funny. Now The Boondocks… that’s a hilarious show. I still need to see the second episode of this season, but the first one was like someone took everything that was great about the first season and turned it up to eleven.

I have a new project that I made for Intermediate Digital Arts: Ambient Lighting. It might take a few minutes to load. Be sure to follow the instructions! Otherwise, it won’t be any fun.

Sometimes I feel like the older I get, the more normal I get. Maybe everyone feels that way. Maybe that’s just a part of growing up. Certain things used to just seem like regular, everyday boring occurrences, but now there’s a bit more to them. I feel like I have more of an appreciation for a lot of experiences in life. For a while, I think I was too narrow-minded. All I wanted to experience was whatever I wanted to be experiencing at the time; anything else was irrelevant and was getting in my way. Now, I feel like I have a bit more perspective.

We’re watching the movie Yi Yi in my New Asian Cinema class. I think most of the class thinks it’s boring, but I think it’s wonderful. It’s one of those movies that makes you think, not about anything in particular, but just about everything. It kind of reminds me of Lost In Translation in terms of nothing other than how it makes me feel. It is a Taiwanese movie, and there is a Japanese character in it named “Ota” who I think is completely awesome. Everything he says is extremely insightful. Also, he occasionally throws Japanese words at the beginning and ends of sentences, even though he converses with the other characters in the movie in English, so he’ll just start a sentence by saying ただ or end one with でしょう and the rest will be in English. This is hilarious to me.

My second project for Intermediate Digital Arts can be found here. (It’s called “project” because I spent too much time working on it to spend any time coming up with a name for it.) It might take a few minutes to load, so please give it some time. The concept is that there are four audio/video clips that you can start and stop (and play from the beginning), and each has its own sound, so by starting (or stopping) them at the right time, you can create a form of music by mixing the sounds together. Many different sounds can be created depending on how/when you choose to mix these four sounds together. I hope someone finds it entertaining, if only for a few minutes.

As I concluded the previous post, I said I was going to start my homework. I didn’t. It all gets done sometime though, so it’s alright.

That party on Saturday was a lot of fun. There was a lot going on, and a lot of cool people there. One thing that never ceases to amaze me is something that my friend and coworker Jessica does:

Apparently it’s called “poi”. Don’t try it at home! I sure wouldn’t. I’m just gonna let Wikipedia explain it, because it’ll do a far better job than I would. (The part about the on-fire variety can be found here.) Being someone who tends to be pretty cautious around fire, doing something like this is unimaginable to me, but it sure is fun to watch. It also makes a really deep “whoosh” sound that I find pretty interesting.

Oh yeah, I have to show off the first project I did for Intermediate Digital Arts. The assignment was to create something using HTML and/or frames (who uses frames anymore anyway? well, I did for this project, but other than that… ) to create a website that has some kind of interaction that is unique to the medium of the web. So, I made weather machine. Click around and see what happens! It’s not amazing, but for the first project of the semester, I think it turned out OK. The second project was a bit more interesting, but I’ll talk about that another time.

Everything seems to be going pretty well this semester. There’s nothing particularly mindblowing, but everything just seems to be “clicking”. Hopefully things will stay that way for a while!

I keep forgetting that it’s Homecoming Weekend. I’m not really too much into that kind of thing, so I guess it’s easy for me to not remember. When I was coming to work this morning, there were a lot more cars moving a lot more slowly than usual for a Saturday, and I was wondering what was going on. Turns out there’s a football game!  I had no idea. Anyway, even though I’m not doing anything Homecoming-related this weekend, I’ll still be pretty busy.

Yesterday I was hanging out with a friend of mine, and we watched the movie Harsh Times. It wasn’t the best movie ever, but it was pretty good. Christian Bale is a great actor, so I think that helped to make it a much better movie. Aside from that, it seemed like it was a lot like Training Day, but noticeably more contrived.

It was interesting to hang out with this friend of mine; back when I was a sophomore, he was my roommate and we both lived in Governors. We’re both friends with all the same people, so we still hang out all the time, but it’s pretty rare that it’s just him and me. There was definitely an old-school vibe going on. It was also nice to hang out at his house. I’m the only one of my group of friends that has an apartment–the rest live at home–so almost all the time we end up at my place. Like eating someone else’s cooking, there’s something inherently refreshing about being somewhere else.

Tonight I’m going to the birthday party of a friend of mine. It should be a good time! I don’t usually like big parties, especially ones where I don’t know very many people there, but a lot of the people at this party will be friends/coworkers/classmates, so I’m sure it’ll be fun.

I always say that I’m going to start my homework early in the weekend so I don’t have to do it all on Sunday. I always say this, but I rarely ever do it. I always manage to get it done on Sunday anyway, so I suppose it all works out fine in the end.

Maybe I’ll start some of it right now, though…

Yeah… I think I will.

Hey everyone! There will be some cool stuff going on here soon. My name’s Matt, and if you read my profile on the right, you should have a decent idea of who I am and what I’m about.

I made a pretty cool Flash project for the class Intermediate Digital Arts (DMS419) recently that I just have to tweak a bit more, and then I’ll put it up online. When I do, I’ll definitely post a link to it in here. I hope somebody enjoys it, because I think it’s a neat little thing.

I love Wednesday nights. My Thursdays are pretty easy, and I don’t have classes on Fridays, so on Wednesdays I can really relax a bit. Thursdays are great for me though; I have work in the morning (gotta get to bed soon!), then a Linguistics class that I’m taking purely because I thought it sounded pretty interesting, and then a class called New Asian Cinema where we mostly just watch movies that are New and Asian, and then discuss them. It’s nice to have some classes that are more about hearing about and seeing interesting things than about a higher-pressure academic environment. The classes I have on Monday and Wednesday are a bit more like that, but I still think I have it pretty easy compared to the crazy things some other people do.

Anyway, if you’re reading this, nice to meet you! If you have any questions, comments, or anything like that, feel free to leave a comment. If you have a question, I’ll try to get back to you ASAP.