In Summary

     I don't have time to write the full post now, or rather, I have time but I should resume writing something more important as soon as possible, so I'll just sum up what I want to say and write a more complete post later for your consumption, The possums will be doing summersaults out of their consuming anticipation, I presume. Assuming of course you tell them about it. You will tell them, won't you? 

      In summary: life can be summed as a long list of summaries.

Think about it.

Understanding Infinity

  
 

 Infinity is a concept that infinitely irritates me. Well, the misunderstanding of infinity is actually the problem. Obviously we all have puny little human minds so totally comprehending a crazy concept like that is impossible, but there are some basics I think we all can and should understand. I'm no scientist or mathematician or anything like that, so feel free to make fun of and correct me if I am totally wrong.

I'm going to assume you already know what infinity is and stuff and just discuss the one aspect of it that really irks me that people don't understand. If you don't know what infinity is, use google. If you don't know what google is, then I can't help you.
 
So yah. Here we go.

Infinity is not the same as infinite variety

People tend to think that if something goes on forever, it contains every possible combination of things. Like, the idea that within the infinite numbers of Pi you'll find the works of Shakespeare (if you use a number to letter cipher of some kind). But it's possible that there is no perfect copy of any Shakespeare play within those random numbers. At some point, Pi could become a meaningless repetition of 987349987349987349987349987349987349987349 over and over again.

 Here's a Vihart video discussing Pi and Shakespeare:

Sounds pretty obvious, but a lot of people don't think about that. A lot of smart people.
    

     Here's Charlie discussing his thoughts on infinity. In the video, he talks about how he thinks there are infinite versions of himself with only minor changes on infinite planets very similar to earth.
The problem is that even though the universe is infinite, there may not be a single planet that's even habitable like earth. There could be infinite desert planets. There could be infinite planets with poisonous gases smothering them. There could be infinite parts of space without any planets at all. I honestly think that there is no Charlie copy regardless of the infinite size of the universe.

I'm sure other people have discussed this and explained it better than I have, but I've been wanting to write this for a long time, and no one reads this anyways (except parents, obv.) so I figured I might as well.


Ladeedadeeda. Have an infinitely great day.

Musical Adventures

So I've had an interesting time trying to discover some cool indie bands. It's kind of like shopping in a thrift store. Sometimes I find nothing and it's frustrating. Other times I find something truly gorgeous and unique and it's super cool. Soooo I decided I'm going to start doing some short posts on what I've found and such. I hope that's okay with you all. Though I'm pretty certain only my parents read this ;P Hi parents!

 So today I went on a Freegal shopping spree. Except not really a shopping spree. Because it's free. And I can only get three songs a week. For those of you that don't know what Freegal is, either google it or wait for me explain it. Which I will do. Now.

Freegal is a site libraries subscribe to, so then everyone with a card for that library can go on the site and download three songs a week. For free. And they get to keep them. Forever. Definitely indefinitely.

They have some big names. Adele, 1D, Miley Cyrus, Pink, etc. But they also have a massive collection of indie bands. A lot of it is pretty lame, but I've found some awesome stuff on there. So that's where I've been browsing today.

Of course some other great sites for discovering music: Noisetrade, Pandora, Grooveshark, Youtube. But today we're in Freegal :)

I started out going through the Indie Rock section. The first few bands I tried were some kind of murderous screamo. Then I saw a band called "Niceland". I thought that sounded pleasant and comfort. They turned out to be some interesting band from Denmark. I can only listen to short previews on Freegal, but they seem good so far. I looked them up on wikipedia and it came up with a band from 1982 of the same name from Iceland that only recorded three songs and broke up, without ever actually releasing any songs, lol. Someone must have been very bored if they decided it was a good idea to write an article about an 80s band that never actually did anything.

I found three more bands in my search today: See Venus,  Mandeng Eletrik,  PK14. Not quite sure if I'm totally crazy about them each yet, but possibly promising. See Venus is a kind of sugary pop sound, female singer. Mandeng Eletrik is an african electronic band. It's a strange combination but I sort of like it. PK14 is a chinese rock band. Has a bit of a unique sound.

Yups yups. That's all for now.

Novel Ideas

     So NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is coming up again. Cue dramatic music.

    I've been planning out a book for months, since June at least. It's a pretty cool book idea in my opinion and I was going to write it for Nano this year. Unfortunately, the plot is pretty complicated so I haven't worked out all the kinks in it yet and I've been too busy with school and work to spend a lot of time figuring it out. So I decided that story will have to wait another year. However, never fear, I still intend to do NaNo!

     I've been debating between two different story ideas. They are both more relaxed simple stories. The first is to just write the Billie the Blimp story and make it into a novella. I think it'd be really easy to drag out into a crazy zombie adventure. It occurred to me last night that is really has a Hitchhiker's Guide sort of vibe to it. Which isn't surprising since I read the first couple books soon before I wrote that, I think. Thinking I might just roll with that and rename it like "The Reporter's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse" of something silly like that.

     The second idea I thought would be fun is to have a story solely based on songs. Like,  have one main character and each of his friends are people out of songs. A few songs/characters I had in mind were Julia from Thousand Foot Krutch's song "Broken Wing", Anberlin's "Adelaide",  Bastille's "Laura Palmer", Capital Light's "Caroline" and Seabird's Michael from their song "Finally Done Right" etc.

So yep. If you have an opinion on which I should do, or have an even better idea, let me know!

Just an Update

I've been away for a while. Is there a way to make all my posts start with that sentence? Like a signature, but at the beginning. It would sure be convenient if there was a way...

I've been busy with college-y stuff. The most interesting of the classes I'm taking would be the ceramics class. I made a duck shaped pot, which is pretty fun. We started throwing pots last thursday. By that I mean using the pottery wheel, not actually launching our pots at a wall or something ridiculous like that ;)

Yups. So that's been cool. All the school year activities have started back up again at the library. We had a ninja party yesterday. The turnout was impressive, somewhere around thirty kids came, some were even waiting to be let in 20 minutes before the party started. We played ninja themed games, had japanese snacks and prizes, a ninja star craft and watched an anime. We weren't able to get Naruto to fit with the ninja theme, unfortunately, so we ended up watching Fairy Tail. Everyone seemed to enjoy it anyways.
Teen Advisory Group also went well, or so I hear. I messed up when I planned out my schedule for this semester, so my ceramics class is during TAG meetings, so I can't go. But 11 teens came to the first meeting, and all of them had great input, so that was really great!

I'd like to start Gusty Guest Wednesdays back up soon. No promises, but it'd be nice.

I've been too busy to do much blog post brain storming, thus this lame all-about-me post.
Storm's brain storming, hahaha. That's kind of a pun. Ish. Thing. Sorry. lol.
Okay, goodbye now.

How to Get Better Photos On Le Cheap

     Ello poppets! Today I'm going to do something a bit different, a TURTLERIAL.
*Dramatic music*
     Yes, I know it's actually called a "Tutorial" but that kind of sounds like Turtle-rial. So from now on everyone must call it "TURTLERIAL" It's required by international law. On. Pluto.

     So I've always been talented at art, but the one medium I wasn't talented in was always photography. However, I've gotten a ton better, and I'd like to help you get better too so I'm going to give you some easy tips :)
     If you're anything like me, you probably are pretty parsimonious. I hate having to spend money to up the quality of my photos or art. I'm also just too plain lazy to go out to stores to actually buy stuff. So all these tips will improve your photos without you spending a cent. So whether you have a fancy Canon or just a cellphone camera, here's how to make the best of what you got.


1. Simplify! Everyone knows a clean house looks better than a cluttered one. Same goes with photos. I know, I know, it's such a pain to move all your curling irons, blow dryers, straighteners, make up, toothbrushes, lotions, towels, soap, and unidentifiable substances off the bathroom counter just to take an instagram selfie, but do it FOR THE SAKE OF ART. I believe in you.

2. Get close! I'm sure the sign you took a photo of was hilarious, but I don't get the joke since the words are two small to read. :( Things are generally more interesting up close, so we can see all the details and stuff. It also helps with tip #1, because if your subject is filling most of the photograph, that doesn't leave a lot of room for clutter to show up. Also, please, if you can physically get closer instead of using zoom, please do. It really ups the quality of the photo you take.

3. Don't center it! Photos tend to be more interesting if you don't center your main subject.

4. Make sure you have enough light! If you can, take your photos during the day and outside or near a window. Natural daylight will help you get better quality photos with a cheaper camera. The biggest differences you'll see between photos taken with cheap cameras and expensive ones is in low light situations, such as artificial indoor light or night time outdoor photos. Also, the most flattering light to take outdoor selfies or besties happens in the early morning, on cloudy days, or just before sunset.

5. Learn how to edit photos well. Photo editing programs can be really expensive, but there are actually some amazing free programs to edit photos. Editing can't make a horrible photo amazing, but it sure can make a difference. If you take photos on an ipod touch or iphone, there are tons of great free photo apps you can get, just try searching for some :) For general editing on my ipod, I use PhotoPower, which is pretty cool. For fun creative stuff, I really love FilterMania 2. It's a bit more digital-art-y, but it's really fun. On my laptop, I use GIMP all the time. It has almost everything that Photoshop has that I've ever needed, and it's totally free. It's a little hard to figure out if you've never done photo editing before, so I may write up some turtlerials on that someday, but there's probably already a ton out there, so if you are confured, look some up :)
I'm sure there are a ton of other great programs out there that I didn't mention, so you can try searching for some yourself, but be sure to check for viruses and such before you download anything :)
Also, if you get GIMP, I would suggest you download the version of it from http://www.partha.com/ because then you get it with some really cool plug-ins preinstalled, which you'll be grateful for when you need them and don't have to figure out how to manually install plug ins!

Billie the Blimp

 Well, here's the serial thing I've been promising you. Part one. Will be continued, most likely.

Billie the Blimp 

      My name is Author. That's not a typo. Let me repeat that. My name is Author.  My name is not Arthur. Do you understand? No? If you can't even comprehend my weird name, then stop reading right now, because you certainly won't believe anything else I say if you can't even believe I know my own name.

     I hate writing. Unfortunately it's one of the things I hate least and am least bad at. My parents always thought it'd be "crazy sweet" if their kid named Author was an author. So they got me to do all sorts of writing workshops. I didn't like it, of course, but you have to make money somehow. So here I am.

     I would say I'm your typical British man, excluding my name of course, and the fact that I'm barely British at all. I was born in England, but I've lived in America since I was two. I maintain a mostly fake British accent and attitude because it makes me popular with all the ladies, and I'd have gotten nowhere in life without that. I still didn't get very far. I write articles for the newspaper. Not any particularly interesting stories, I pick up the mundane things no one else wants to write about.

      So when the local eccentric decided she had to have her dear cat buried in a real graveyard, I was called upon to write about it.
    I interviewed the mourners after the burial and even toned down my constant sarcasm to prevent offending any of them too severely. Everything was going great. At nine that night I was nearly finished, when I wrote the closing sentence which required the cat's birth date. I remembered seeing it on the gravestone, but I couldn't recall for the life of me what it was. Not even remotely. I spent an hour searching the Internet for the answer and wondered why the newspaper didn't have anything about the cat, when I finally remembered there was no article because I hadn't finished writing the article yet.
      There was only one thing to do. I had to go to the cemetery and check the gravestone. I cursed myself for not thinking to write it down when I was there earlier. I am an undying sluggard, loath to go anywhere not entirely essential. However, there was nothing I could do except call the eccentric herself and ask, or go to the cemetery and look on the gravestone, with calling the lady being completely out of the question.  So I put on my overcoat and flipped up the collar and wished I could pull off the dramatic Sherlock Holmes thing. I shrugged and headed out.

     The cemetery really wasn't very far away, a bit over a mile, but I am far too lazy to walk, as you probably already guessed. Besides, I'd look like some creep if I walked there this late at night, I consoled myself.
     I parked near where I thought the cat was buried. Have I mentioned that whenever I ever guess anything I am invariably wrong? I'll take a guess that I have told you that already. Oh, blarney, I'm wrong, aren't I? Most people would consider this a curse, but my parents always told me it was a good thing, got rid of the temptation to waste my money gambling.
My parents became millionaires by playing the lottery. I'll wait a moment so you can let that sink in. You understand the irony of that, good job. I'll move on now.

     So I looked around for the cat's grave and I realized I parked by the old section of the graveyard with civil war era graves. At least I guessed they were civil war era, which means they weren't. I was never good with American history. Which is fine, because I'm British, right?
     I walked towards the newer section, I wasn't just guessing, because there was really only one direction to go, and the graves became gradually newer as I strolled along. I spied a tiny fresh grave a little ways off.
     I heard a strange sound. I'm not sure how to describe it exactly, because I'm a failure of a writer, but it sounded like something shifting beneath me. Kind of a crack, but softer and mushier. I looked around, thinking someone else must be there, then when I saw nothing, I just shrugged and walked on. If you haven't noticed yet, I shrug quite a lot. I also tend to ignore things a lot when I shouldn't.
Such as the huge gaping hole in the ground right in front of me.
To be fair, I didn't exactly ignore the huge hole, it just didn't fully register in my mind until I fell head first into it.
     "Blimey, hello!" I exclaimed as I got over the shock of falling onto something quite hard and found myself face to face with a man. Something didn't seem right about him. Something seemed a little off about everything around me actually. I heard a car motor running. Then I realized that I was on the hood of a car, staring through the windshield at the driver's face. The car was in the hole in the ground. And it was running. I wondered why the car was in the ground. Then I decided I should probably think about holding on tight because it was moving. At first it just moved slowly and jerkily as it tried to gain traction in the dirt. I thought about trying to jump off before it sped up, but the sides of the ditch were too steep except in the direction the car was driving, and if lying on a moving car is madness, jumping in front of it is pure insanity.
     So I just stayed there and kept staring at the man. He looked familiar but it took me a moment to place him. I'll blame it on the fact that I got a minor concussion from literally diving into the car head first, but you can believe that I'm just bad at remember people, and you'd be quite right.
     For whatever reason, it took me a while, but I did remember him. I wrote his obituary about a year or so ago. His name was "Billie the Blimp" It was an unusual burial because his parents opted to bury him in his favourite car. Which means I was lying on a car coffin being driven by a dead man. A zombie actually, I suppose. Which seemed highly improbably, but I didn't need to pinch myself because the bruised feeling all over my body made it quite obviously not just a dream, and as Sherlock would say, "When you've eliminated the impossible-"
     I didn't have a chance to finish reciting that to myself because I was interrupted by a girl screaming. Then I realized it wasn't a girl, it was me, screaming quite shrilly, and with good reason because I was flying through the air as the zombie driven coffin car finally escaped the ditch. It went so fast it flew off the ground, but miracle of all miracles, I managed to hang on by grabbing the roof racks, which I have no idea how I manged to do, because I'm not a very fast or clever thinker, but it happened, and the zombie driver went speeding out of the graveyard into town. My hands and arms burned with the effort of holding on, and my face felt like it must have frozen off from the wind. I guessed that any moment I would lose my grip and get flung to my death by the crazy zombie.
     We were going at least ninety miles per hour, I guessed. I tried to look down into the car to see if I could get at least one guess right before I died. It took some doing, but I did manage to look. We were going eighty-five. Suddenly we went around a sharp turn I hadn't anticipated and I lost my grip and flew off the car. This is what I get for wishing for one right guess, I thought to myself, though I don't know how I managed to think such silly things while flying through the air. I even thought about how I should have been a better person, I should have been productive with my life, I should have sent my mother flowers randomly and told her how wonderful she was even though she took me away from England, and I should have thanked my father for paying for my education and taking care of me . . .
     Then I realized I'd stopped flying through the air. I stayed still for a few moments. It wasn't exactly how I pictured heaven. Just dull fluffy whiteness everywhere. That was it and nothing more. It almost looked like a mass of pillows.
     "Ello, these are pillow!" I exclaimed to myself.
     "Course they are, what did you expect to find when you jumped in the window of the pillow factory?" a gruff southern accent said. Usually I hated southern accents, but when you thought you were dead, any human voice is welcome, I think.
     I tumbled out of the pillow pile and landed on the floor. I groaned, I had never been more bruised in my life, I was sure. I looked up to see a crowd of factory workers staring at me.
     "What happened to you?" a woman asked. I shook my head and answered with my heavy sarcasm.
     "If I tell you, you'll think I'm drunk."