Animation eye + 1, morale - 1

Have you ever had a creative epiphany from a successful endeavor which completely killed your morale?

For the past few weeks I have polished a segment of my animated short with the intent of updating my reel. And by polish I mean painstakingly positioning each individual finger, toe, knee, elbow, etc on 600 frames so that they made beautiful arcs. My plan this week was to finish* polishing the segment and add my highly-regarded "Get Out" dialogue to the end. Bam! New reel completed.

I accomplished the former, but the latter step hit a major block:

Six weeks of over-analyzing minutia in my "Head of the House" shot had inadvertently trained my eye to be more sensitive to animation principles. When I finished the short's polish, I opened my "Get Out" shot to add it to the reel and audibly gasped: It looked terrible.

This was a shot I spent months writing about on this very blog. It represented my best animation and I proudly showed it off. I even received feedback on it from some very influential animators and came away happy. But now, I see so much "wrongness" in it. Or, to be more precise, I see so many ways that I could do it even better.

The piece itself isn't bad, it just is no longer indicative of my current skill level. I have progressed enough over the past year that creative choices I was once proud of now cause me to cringe. I stared at this shot for over a hundred hours completely oblivious to errors that now loudly scream "look at me!" to me in every playback. And I couldn't be happier.

Well, at least now I couldn't be happier. When it first happened my morale was obliterated: my months-long plan to update my reel for the first time since January '10 was foiled by my obvious lack of skill. The simple task of pasting my last shot to the end of my current shot suddenly turned into a scores-of-hours process of updating my old shot to at least be decent. And again, I had tirelessly worked on this animation for months and then prominently displayed it for the past year to everyone. Goodbye self-esteem!

But it didn't take long for me to perk back up. This is natural, after all. Artist actually want this to happen. All artists look at their old work and shudder with disbelief. And all artists are exponentially more critical when looking at their own work. Many readers on this site may look at my "Get Out" shot and say "it looks great to me", which is fine. But I know I can do better and have already begun my next shot to prove it.

And I'm sure in a year I will look at my "Head of the House" shot and ask, "what the hell was I thinking" and repeat the cycle all over again (it has already happened once). I look forward to that day.

In other news, my new reel is up. Although there is a very good chance it will be replaced in the next 8 weeks. :)


*nothing is "finished" in animation, they just take it away from you and tell you to move on.

Head House - SP11 state of the short!

It is a new term at Animation Mentor and after a fantastic Winter term I am super excited to animate even more of my "Head of the House" short. I received wonderful feedback at the end of the term that motivated to put all of my focus into my animation for the next few months (some studios are keeping a very-interested eye on my progress, I've heard), so again sorry for the lack of blog updates but my animation is eating up most of my non-work time recently.

For the sake of progress, here is the current state of my short. This includes animation from 2007 (the beginning and end of the short) and the new animation I redid from scratch at the end of 2010 and beginning of 2011 (anything with the new couch). Hopefully the difference in quality is obvious enough that I don't have to point out where the cuts are. :)

The best laid plans... (of 2010)

'Tis 2011 and my blog has been far more barren than I had planned. I would like to say "life got in the way" but I also know that I could have posted more if I had prioritized it higher. In retrospect, my biggest downfall was reaching my year-long goal of a "healthy, talented Jay" for my 10 year reunions. After traveling and spending two weeks with my old high school friends I found it hard to motivate myself to return to my strenuous routine when I returned. I still worked on each of my stated goals, but instead of doing all six of them every day I would do only 1-3. And the most affected, and public, of these goals was posting to this blog. My "upcoming posts" admin page has 20+ partially finished posts each waiting on me to finish an earlier, time-sensitive post before I can publish them in chronological order. I must overcome that desire for accurate chronological posts and instead post when I have a topic that needs to be written.

Regardless, I have no more excuses and plenty of motivating factors to encourage me to return to my goal-accomplishing habits of old: I'm taking another animation class (yay for daily animation); I've organized a gym team at work (exercise, woot!); I've moved and now have a 1.5 hour round trip commute (dedicated time for audiobooks and family phone calls); and most importantly (and unexpectedly) I've moved in with a wonderful someone who has similar goals and the mutual desire to help the other reach their goals. Most of all, I'm looking forward to 2011 and seeing this poor little blog have some life again!

Passion: Healthy progress

When I created this blog I stated my different passions and goals, one of which involved my health:

A decade ago I was underweight and couldn't gain weight no matter much I ate. 2 years ago I was overweight and lazy. Through hard work and dedication I was able to lose 40 pounds and get back into decent shape. Now I want to really work on being fit and being able to get the most out of life.

At the time of my first post I had run a 5k and 10k at roughly 10 minutes a mile and was proud of my growth from couch potato to amateur runner. One year later, I am running unplanned half-marathons for fun (also at 10 minutes a mile but my first 10k is at about 9 minutes a mile, the last one kills me). I've brought my 1 mile speed down to sub 7 minutes from 9 minutes and will get it even lower by this next year (it would be great to see a mile in the 5 minute range). And overall I've just had fun with running, something I never thought would be possible.

As for my weight goals, I began working out more. As mentioned above, I had lost 40 lbs before beginning this blog, but it the process lost a lot of muscle too. Below you can my transformation from 10 years ago to 3 years ago to last year at the time of my first post:

While I am not at the "fit" point that I want to be I am on the right path. I have gained 15 pounds since last September, yet my pants size has dropped one size so most of the weight is now in my upper body. My workouts now have me lifting double/triple the amount of weight I was a year ago. My max pull ups doubled, I went from roughly 10 max "perfect push-ups" to over 50!

I am building a future post (likely for 2011) on this subject that will include more embarrassing before and after photos so I won't go into too much here. Without giving too much away, here are some photos one of running buddies took, without me knowing, of my obsessive relationship with pull ups (both overhand and underhand): If I see a workout bar on the street, you can expect to see me at least pump out 10 pull-ups. You can even see the sequence where I drop down and suddenly realize they were taking photos. Not shown: the severe beatdown I gave to them afterwords. But hey, at least I have something to show now, right?

I am on my way to a fitter Jay!

The Goals: my blog's 1st year

So last week marked the one year anniversary of this blog. At the time I was busy running an impromptu half-marathon and was unable to address it, but my plan in creating this blog involved a yearly check-in to verify I continued to meet my theme:

This blog will document my passions, progress, and random musings so at the end of the day I can look back and see that, while I have not reached everything I have hoped for, I am further than when I started. And tomorrow is always another day on the road to a new Jay.

So how did I do? Well, for base stats I posted 220 stories in 365 days, blogging for roughly 60% of the year. While this is far from a 100% posting rate I had imagined, it is a vast improvement over the 1 post per year rate I had previously. I also noticed a trend of 3 months off and on for my posting habits. I was really strong September and October (literally posting everyday) and then posted only 30 times over the next 3 months (having a new baby may be a good excuse though). I then did well from Feb-April, but disappeared from May until July. Although at this time I was stuck on the notion of emphasizing the posting date over the completion date, and many of April's 29 posts were actually written throughout May and June. I then picked it back up for July and August and have maintained roughly a 60% monthly average since. Not bad, but it could be better.

Then again, one hypothesis that I am looking into this year is whether posting too often about productivity is detrimental to my actual productivity. Maybe I need that other 40% of time for my projects? Or maybe not. We'll see how my numbers are in September 2011...

My most common themes were:

Jay (53) - it is a blog about me, so this is not surprising
photography (53) - did not expect this, but in retrospect it was far easier to spend a weekend with the family and a camera to create 5 posts than it was to animate for 3 weeks to get 1 post
animation (44) - it is my job and hobby, but not enough of these posts were showing progress in my work, they were informative articles or links
family (41) - a vast majority being photography of my frequent trips to visit the family. These will be fun to look at over the years
music (34) - surprised it was this high, I feel like I didn't create enough performance videos this year
theme (33) - a somewhat nebulous category since the majority of my posts do involve my theme of progression, I just got tired of tagging them all and only tagged the major milestones.

So that is a brief look at my first year in blogging. Over the next month I will create a retrospective post for each of my passions to see reallly how much I progressed during this year...

And with that, I shall end this much like I began it: it's my blog and I will do what I want!

(and I have)

Marathon at the Bay: a photo story

Have you wanted to run a 1/2 marathon but were unable to do so due to health/weather/rabid coyote concerns? Or, if you are not a runner, have you ever wondered what walking next to a bay at sunset looked like? Then this post is for you!

One day I walked outside and said "I am going to run until I cannot run any longer". After 13.1 miles, 2 hours and 24 minutes, and numerous stops for photos passed I walked into my house and collapsed asking myself why I ever decided to do such a thing. Now you can enjoy the experience without all the annoying knee pains, gasping and wheezing lungs, and sore legs which refused to go up or down stairs for a week afterwords!

Below you will find my final course through Emeryville. While I didn't originally plan on running a marathon when I started, I ran these various trails enough to know their distances and by mile 9 decided to take a detour to reach that 13 mile marker (final total was 13.4 miles). The numbers shown below are actually locations of pictures for reference (not miles). Click on any photo for a larger, more detailed photo. Sometimes the tiniest/furthest parts of the photo are actually my next destination in the run!

For full effect, press the play button to hear the music I listened to for most of the run, a piece which is perfect for watching sunsets.





1. Looking West towards Marina - At about the 2nd mile I was stunned by the beauty of the oncoming sunset and took the first photo. The little tree in the center of the road is about 1 mile away at marker 2.


2. Looking West towards San Francisco - the first of many shots showing the sun slowly lowering towards the horizon, which for this vantage point is the Golden Gate Bridge. San Francisco is the land in the center.


3. North towards Berkeley Marina - The brown land mass in the center of the photo is the Berkeley Marina (marker 9); one hour later I would be standing there taking a photo of my present location.



3.2 East towards Berkeley - in about 20 minutes I would be running along that path bordering the water on the other side of the bay

Hair today, gone tomorrow

Last year was all about experimenting and trying ideas/actions/tasks I wouldn't normally do. I began growing my hair out last July in order to look like Mr. Darcy in time for Halloween. While my hair was not long enough to match my Darcy reference, by Halloween it was pretty long. In fact, it was longer than I could ever remember it being. Then I realized that I had never grown my hair out before. I had always jumped from having a short, an almost-buzz-cut, to spike hair (with blond highlights), to a bowl cut around the forehead, to parted either down the center or side, then cut and repeat when it got too long. Maybe I would look fabulous with long hair? How would I know if I didn't try?!

Also, seeing how both my grandparents and my father are bald (and that little ball of hair at the bottom of the shower ain't getting any smaller), I knew my time to grow long hair was limited.

So I let my hair grow. And grow. And, coincidentally, during this time my wardrobe expanded to include a fabulous collection of hats.

Alas, all good(?) things must come to an end. I reached my goal of growing long hair out, and it was time to go back to something more familiar...



If there is one benefit to come of this (beyond the scores of "wow, you look good!" complements) it is that now my mother and sister will stop bugging me about my hair every time I visit (or slyly mentioning it at the end of their blog posts) ;)

5k, schmive-kay

Most days when I run I don't try to push myself too hard. I don't need to break a personal record each time, and pushing yourself too hard, too fast, and too often is a great way to get injured. But every now and then I wake up and ask myself "I wonder if I am any faster?"

About a year ago I ran my first non-stop 5k (3.1 miles) in 34:40 with roughly a 11:20 per mile average pace. I was proud, I had reached my first goal of training to run that length. My next goal was to run in less than 30 minutes. About 2 months later I ran a 28:40. I then wanted to run in less than 27 minutes, which I did this past Spring (I took a break from running in the winter to when Elliot was born, and because it rained every frakkin day in Cali). My new goal was to run in less than 26 minutes...

Today I ran the 5k in 25:27 (8:10 pace) and still had energy to go farther and faster. My new goal is to run a sub 25 minute 5k with an average mile pace of below 8:00, or roughly 10 minutes faster than I ran a year ago. A year ago, such speeds sounded like a dream, but now I don't think its going to be too hard. Hopefully my next running post in the following month(s) will have my creating an every more ambitious goal after finishing this one with ease...

Bay to Breakers 2010

In May I ran my first "official" race: Bay 2 Breakers!
The annual race travel 12k (7.3 mi) from one end of San Francisco (the bay) to the other (the breaking ocean waves). In 2009, on a whim, I decided to walk the course which was my first long distance walk/run exercise in 5 years and my first large race experience. Considering I prepped in no way I am surprised that I didn't collapse within the first few miles.

After a year of running for fun I decided to do the race "officially" (meaning I paid money and got a race number). I put on my trusty Five Finger shoes and ran my heart out, then as a bonus got my picture taken:



When I crossed the finish line my time was texted to me: 1:16:00! I ran over 7 miles in about 75 minutes! A few items to note:

1. My 2009 time was 2:15 which means I knocked an hour off of my (unfit) time; awesome!
2. While my overall average mile for the race is just over 10 minutes in execution it was even faster. I underestimate how large 80,000 people really is (see below) and spent the first 3 miles running 11-12 minute miles as I tried to pass the slower people in front of me. By the 4th mile I was running with people traveling the same pace as me. So to average an overall 10 minute mile I likely ran 8:30 miles for the last half of the race! And 8:30 for a mile used to be my "fast single mile" speed, not my pace speed!
   
3. The Five Finger shoes feel amazing, but they pretty much are like running barefoot. And running barefoot on street concrete for over an hour does not feel good. I normally run my 5ks on dirt paths, my heels were not prepared for this race. Luckily, the last 2 miles were in Golden Gate Park and I did a lot of "off road" running.
   
4. Any food consumed after running for 75 minutes tastes like the best food ever. They gave out free yogurt at the end of the race and it was like manna from heaven. I bought it at grocery store later and it tasted like... plain yogurt.
5. Whoever decided to set up the bus stop (to get back to the start line) almost 2 miles from the finish line needs to be shot.
   
6. At 5:30 AM on race day I had everything ready to go (cell phone, water bottle, running clothes, sun screen, race info, etc). EXCEPT: I didn't realize the racing bib did not come with an adhesive. I always assumed they had sticky backs, but you actually use a clothes pin to attach them. Seeing as I am a guy (ie: I don't sew) I had no way to attach the bib the day of the race (I was out of tape too). Luckily, my first aid kit provided a solution: band-aids! I'm not sure why I needed 30 band-aids in my first aid kit, but now I only have 25...
7. Sports photos are a racket. The company offered printed photos for $20+ but if I wanted digital copies they cost over $50. Most. expensive. blog post. ever!
   

(I'm that white dot 354th from front about about 24th from the right)

DK in Love (guitar)

Yay, another guitar recording!


Like my last piece, this arrangement of a classic video game theme, Donkey Kong, is written by kabukibear. If you don't remember the "theme" of the Donkey Kong arcade game don't worry because it is actually only 5 notes long (and played at the beginning of my video) and turns fairly annoying by the 10th time it plays.

I love Justin's arrangement of this, he added a true melody to the piece and ran with it. The first time I heard it I knew I wanted to play it, and boy was it a struggle. The piece uses a lot off pull offs (playing the string by pulling off of it with the left hand instead of picking the string with the right) and I had trouble learning this at first. After I was able to "play" each note, I listened to my performance and realized the actual DK part of piece was completely lost, the 5 note rhythm was just background garble. After more practice and lots of focus on my pull off techniques I finally got my performance where it is today and am very happy with this piece.

I am bummed it took me 8 months to finally record it but it was worth waiting for the better quality. Previous recordings were done with my smaller digital camera which doesn't have the best sound quality. While I filmed this one with DSLR HD camera, the audio was recorded separately with a better mic that we finally got at work. It isn't pro quality, but its an improvement over my previous recordings. Plus I got to show off a few of my desk decorations in the process! And I finally found a use for my footage from GDC of Steve Wiebe playing Donkey Kong.

I have another piece that I have been working on for years that is about ready to be recorded, hopefully there won't be another 4 month gap between that recording and this one...

Vibram Five Fingers update

I bought the Vibram Five Fingers shoes in April and mentioned I would update this blog with my thoughts. Well, after nearly 3 months of use I can say these shoes are one of the best health purchases I've ever made! In those 3 months my runs have improved tremendously thanks to the way the shoes force me to change my stride. Prior to buying the shoes my best sprint mile time was 7:49, today I ran the same trail in 6:51!

Granted, running a few times a week would improve my speed regardless of what shoe I wore, but the day I bought the shoes my best mile went from 7:49 to 7:30 and the 7:30 mile wasn't even a sprint. Suddenly I realize how bad my form was when I wore tennis shoes and how much energy I wasted with that form. By landing on my toes first (as shown in the videos in my previous post) not only do my knees feel better but I am able to move my feet faster and cover more distance with less effort. And I love the way the shoes feel. Now I find myself running off the paths as much as possible just to feel each new texture. I've thought about actually running barefoot (no shoe at all) but after finding thorns and glass over 1/4 inch long stuck on the bottom of the Vibrams I've come to appreciate at how much they protect my foot and how running barefoot in my neighborhood could end in disaster.

For those of you who also recently bought the Vibrams, I highly recommend reading Born to Run. The book is absolutely fascinating and talksabout the Five Fingers along with a super race against the world's fastest long distance runners and also how the human body evolved to run differently than every other animal (and why the Neanderthals died out due to their lack of running ability).

Other milestones that have occured during the last 3 months since buying the shoes:

I ran my first 12k (7 miles) in 1 hr 16 minutes.
My long distance pace went from 9:30 to 8:30 per mile
My 5k went from 29:40 to 26:45
My regular mile pace (ie, I don't feel like I am dying after running 1 mile) went from 8:30 to 7:30
And my sprint mile went from 7:49 to 6:51
And 1/2 mile sprint is now 3:10

My only complaint is that the shoe is so thin and skin tight that there is no place to put my Nike+ pedometer so that it accurately measures my speed. I have to recalibrate it each mile because the force of each foot impact changes the pressure on the pedometer and it can't get an accurate read (previously the tennis shoe absorbed the impact so the pressure was constant).

I'm running a 1/2 Marathon at Disneyland this fall, hopefully by then my speeds will be even better. And all of this thanks to a piece of rubber loosely attached to my foot.

Head of the House - 3 blocking to spline

As mentioned before, I am finishing/completely overhauling my short one scene at a time.

I recently completely recreated scene 3 with new acting reference (essentially starting the scene from scratch). Below is the first pass of my blocking (planning poses without getting too detailed in the movements between) as I go into splining (figuring out the movements between the poses, focusing on smaller movements to complete the action).


It is a start! Again, for the non-animators this is just the very beginning of a shot which is why it looks rough. I probably have another 10-30 hours of work to go into this. Once it is "finished" I will post a comparison to see how much it changed!


You can see the original shot here, roughly at the 20 second mark.

Head of the House - Let's do this thing!

The short film: the art student's dream/nightmare. Almost every animation/film student creates a short film, either as their final project or for personal pleasure. For some, this is their dream - an opportunity to create and entire tale that is entirely their own and do with it as they please (a luxury that is not given to animators working on a commercial film). For others, the short film looms ahead as an impassable mountain; those animators just want scenes to animate and don't want the hassle of story creation/layout and the long nights of animating more frames than any sane person would volunteer for. For me, well... I was a little of column A, and little of column B.

Another year! Another review!

Like most companies, we have annual reviews at my job and unlike many employees I actually look forward to mine. I enjoy looking back at all the projects I worked on, discussing my successes and failures, and looking forward to my future projects and ways to improve (pretty much just like the purpose of this blog). It's a great retrospective and I'm always reminded of why I am here and what I want to do in the future. I'm not going into the specifics of my review, just that I loved doing it and have some really cool plans for the upcoming year. Hopefully by next year's review I will be able to post the results to a few of my ambitious projects. :)

Hair: How to mess it up

One year ago, I essentially shaved my head for an easy get-up-and-go styling that allowed me the luxury of not having to spend time on my hair each morning.

Then I read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and decided I was going to be Mr. Darcy for Halloween which required me to grow out my hair. Afterwords, I decided I won't have many more opportunities to grow out my hair long again (all the males in my family are bald) so I kept growing it and growing. Now my hair is long enough to go below my ears, easily the longest length ever, and I have no idea how to style it. But like everything else on this blog, I am learning and need to show a progression! I'm trying to go for the "messy hair surfer" look which is all the rage now. And to do that I enlisted the help of some actual surfers (and possible hairdressers).

The friz:

They spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out the best look, and in the end my hair was indeed "messed up".

I like the look from the side but am still not sold on the front. But I've been told I just need to give it time to grow out so I can more with the front. Until then, I'm wearing all hats!

Gonna Fly Now - 5k

About 9 months ago I came across a website that detailed how anyone can train for a 5k (3 mile) run (humorously called "Couch to 5k"). At the time, my biggest running accomplishment was running about 2 miles on the beach and that was 10 years earlier (and I was motivated by trying to impress a girl who literally ran circles around me). But this training plan made the 5k not only sound doable, but easy. Sure enough, within 7 weeks of the 12 week goal I ran my first non-stop 5k with time of 34:30 minutes (or roughly at 11:10 per mile pace). I continued to train through the weeks and eventually got my time down to 28:50. Then the winter rains rolled around (and I had a baby which is a little distracting) and I didn't run as often. Last month I began again and ran my first sub 8 minute mile, but I still hadn't tried a full 5k. Today that changed.

And I ran it in 26:47 after not running one in 4 months.

Although, my iPod was set to the Rocky theme for most of the run so that may have had something to do with it.

When I first started running a 27 minute 5k seemed like a distant dream. Now, I am wondering if 24 minutes is really that hard. We shall see...

(Gonna Fly Nooooooooow)

Clothes no more

This weekend I did something I had never done before: I actually went through my clothes and got rid of a few!

I've always been a nostalgic pack rat. For the longest time I would keep clothes just because they reminded of previous (good) times when I wore them. Which means there have been times I've worn ugly clothes from the 90's because they remind me of high school. Well, that and part of me was proud that I could wear them again, as I gained 40 lbs at the end of college and only returned to my high school weight in the last few years. Not only that, but I "collected" a lot of shirts as well just because they were free or geeky. My many trips to comic conventions gave me free schwag that most people wouldn't be caught dead in (anyone want to wear a 2005 "War of the Worlds" t-shirt?). For a while there I also collected Hard Rock Cafe shirts from the cities I visited; it got to the point where almost half my wardrobe was Hard Rock shirts.

I just didn't get rid of clothes. My family would find ways to quietly remove clothes from my wardrobe but occasionally I would ask where a certain Tommy Hilfiger shirt or ratty comic book T-shirt went and catch them after the fact. They learned to be more creative after that. One of my best birthday presents was a blanket made from my favorite college t-shirts (mostly frat shirts) which weren't exactly proper attire for work.

Anyways, the past few months I have been working on new outfits that I enjoy wearing. After a few rounds of laundry I realized that I was wearing roughly the same 10 outfits (mixing and matching pants and sweater combos) and that some of the stuff in my closet hadn't been worn in years. So I dumped all my clothes on the floor and proceeded to throw away all the shirts that just didn't match my new outfits (or were so stained it was pathetic). It didn't take long to fill an entire trash bag. I then drove 30 miles to the local Goodwill and bid goodbye to the clothes without a second thought. This was a first for me, a surprisingly it was easy than I expected. Who know, maybe in the next year I will be donating my current outfits after buying all new ones...

And somewhere out there someone now is showing off their new-to-them Iron Man t-shirt (or maybe a No Fear shirt). Hope they have as good of times with their new clothes as I did when I wore them!

"The Only Thing I Know"

This video is all too familiar:


The creator/animator of this video, Brian, is going through a lot of the same thought processes and actions that I went through a year ago (which led to the creation of this blog). While he focuses mostly on video games, especially online multiplayer games, I also felt the same way about TV shows and any other form of entertainment which in the end "provide no lasting value". I agree the "Nintendo generation" is in danger of getting lost in the line between entertainment and reality. Living the life of a computer avatar, or living a life vicariously through "reality" TV, is not really living at all. There are so many forms of entertainment now that one could spend their entire life sitting in front of flashing rectangles and never realize what they are missing. Be it video games, TV shows, internet websites or a combination of them (Farmville, Youtube, the Tester, etc.), people spend far too many hours on activities which will provide no substance for them in long run. And entertainment has gotten so good at creating new "realities" that people don't care to enjoy the one true reality around them.

The sad thing is due to the nature of competition, both within the medium and against the other mediums, each source of entertainment is coming up with new ways to retain the interest of the viewer and prevent them from living a life beyond. In the case of video games, when I first started playing most games could be be finished in an hour or less and since there were only a relatively few games you could play all the new "good ones" over a weekend and move on with your life. But now if a game is less than 10 hours long, or does not include a multiplayer competition (which never ends), the game receives lower scores in reviews and will sell less copies. And there are many "good games" released every month, so many that there is no way you will be able to play them all (or get good enough in the multiplayer to truly enjoy it).

Other mediums are the same way. There are more TV channels than ever, and most shows are now story arc based so if you watch one episode you have to watch every season. In the past, most TV episodes were bite-size stand-alone stories. Now, sitcoms like "How I Met Your Mother" and the Office or dramas like 24, Dexter, and Battlestar Galactica have season long arcs that progress in every episode (so don't miss one)! And "reality" shows actually allow you to watch other people living out their "real" lives so you don't have to! Every show is trying to keep you hooked, and there are so many good shows that you don't have the time to watch them all. But we try anyways.

At least TV shows end at some point, usually a 22 minute session over 13-22 weeks. The biggest game currently, World of Warcraft, literally never ends. The game keeps expanding and gathering more subscribers (around 11 million currently) who pay $15 a month to live in a simulated fantasy world. The game makes more in a month than most movies make in their entire worldwide theatrical runs. The game is fun and, in a way, social. But unlike a book or a movie it will never end; there is always another task to do or goal to "accomplish". So the generation who grew up playing 1 hour games to completion get pulled into the game and never leave. (Not that this is the game/tv creators' fault, the viewers should be the ones who manage their time better).

This change from short term game completion to long-term obsession happened so gradually that many players in their 20's and 30's don't realize what has happened and are just doing what they have always done. There is no older generation who experienced this, screwed up, and are warning others to avoid it. We are the first to do this and suddenly the ill effects of this entertainment cycle are becoming more apparent to us. And it takes people like Brian to reach out to those around them and say "hey, this isn't actually good! Slow down and look what life we've missed!"

Let's hope people start listening to him before it is too late.

As for me, this blog is a small portion of proof that there is life beyond entertainment. As shown in my retrospectives, in the 7 months since I severely limited my TV and games I read more books, ran more miles, cooked more "fancy" meals, animated more videos, learned more guitar, and wrote more blog/journal posts than I did in my previous 27 years. Who knows what I will do in the next 7 months (or 28 years)?

8 minutes or less

So today I took began my morning run with a goal: to beat an 8 minute mile. Most of my running as of late has been in preparation for longer distances, so I run at a comfortable pace for about 30 minutes. Over the course of a few months my comfortable pace has changed from roughly an 11 minute mile/34:30 5k to a 9:30 mile/28:40 5k. But today I wanted to go for speed.

Never again (well, this month).

I start off my mile pushing myself pretty hard but not sprinting. Based on how my 9:30 "comfortable" pace normally feels I mentally guessed my "hard" pace was just below 8:00 which meant I had to keep it up for the full 8 minutes. After .5 miles had passed (my iPod tracks the distance and informs me audibly) I couldn't keep it up so I slowed down. I still felt faster than my "comfortable" pace but I knew I wasn't going to make the 8 minutes since my pace had to be above 8:00 now. Finally, with just .05 miles left I began to walk, thinking it was better that I didn't kill myself trying to get an time that was definitely over 8 minutes.

Then I checked the amount of time I had been running:

7:25

"CRAP! I can still make it!"

I sprinted and 20 seconds later heard "Congratulations, you have completed your fastest mile at 7:47"!

And then I collapsed on the nearest bench..

After syncing my iPod I found that my "hard" pace was 6:45 and my slow down was right at 8:00. Even with a small walk at a 15:00 pace I was still able to beat my goal of sub 8 minutes. This astounds me because it means even after a 3 month break from running, my speed is faster than it was in the fall when I ran "full out" for the mile and only made it at 8:15. Given a few more weeks of practice, I may be able to push my comfortable pace to sub 9 minutes and beat a 27:00 5k.

I also learned that sprinting is a bitch. (pardon my French).

I tried walking after the run but had to collapse on the bench. After a few minutes I was able to make it up two flights of stairs to my bed and collapse there for 20+ minutes. I've decided that long distance running is my exercise of choice. I can run a 30 minute 5K, take a small 5 minute walking rest and feel great after a total of 35 minutes of exercise. But if I run an 7:47 mile I am collapsed/exhausted for at least 10 minutes (those being absolutely miserable) and semi-mobile for another 10-15 minutes for a total of 33 minutes of exercise (at about 1/3 of the calorie loss). No thanks!

State of the Passions: Music

Recently this blog turned 150 days old. I began this blog with a goal of bettering myself incrementally each day:

This blog will document my passions, progress, and random musings so at the end of the day I can look back and see that, while I have not reached everything I have hoped for, I am further than when I started. And tomorrow is always another day on the road to a new Jay.

I then laid out My Passions in my second post. So where I am 150 days later, specifically Music?

Piano: As noted before, I don't get to play much since I don't have a piano at my residence. But when I travel to my parents house I have access to a nice grand piano. But my time at my parents house is usually spent preoccupied with other important tasks. :)
I did (re)learn a song to perform for Raeleigh which was one my stated goals. I also uploaded and announced my Christmas arrangement that I created a few years ago. And one of the highlights of Christmas was (loosely) performing the entire "The Snowman" score for Raeleigh while reading the story to her. I'm working on a few other pieces to perform for the family and hope to have more at least another video in the next 150 days. Although considering my time spent at the house will be even smaller than the past 150 days that may not be possible. But I will try! In the mean time, I will continue to post my favorite piano music and collect new sheet music for the day I once again have access to a piano!

Guitar: Without the luxury of a piano I've had to put my musical urges into another instrument: the guitar! Since beginning this blog I have completed the tabbing of one of my favorite guitar pieces (of which my 12 year search failed to find sheet music). I am still learning the piece and likely will for a while but hope to have it performable in a few months. I've also completed tabbing (and learning) another easier piece which is just a fun little TV medley which I will either post my performance or just link to the original that I tabbed from.
More importantly, I finally went to a guitar store to get a "checkup" of my guitar. In the 13 years of owning a guitar (albeit I took a break for about 11 of them) I have never done that and either relied on others to change the strings or just lived without. I now have a capo, new strings, a clean neck (now free of 13 years worth of finger oil buildup, ech!), a thumb pick, and an actual music book to learn from! The fresh guitar emboldened me to finally record one of the earliest pieces I learned which in tern emboldened my to practice up my other pieces to eventually record as well. Finally. I began tabbing another piece, although this one is easier since it is from sheet music rather than an audio file, which I hope to document my learning process from beginning to end.
Finally, the one "goal" I failed to do over the past few months was posting links to my favorite fan guitar videos. Not only does this action make my goal creating content for this blog everyday a little easier but it reminds me of my influences. The only downside is a lot of the pieces I am learning/tabbing are the same ones I enjoy online, and since the original performers will always out perform me I am hesitant to post them first. That's something I will have to get over fast.