Wait for it...

My graphics tablet arrived. Looks like my plans for the summer are sorted!

Comics incoming

Getting ready to cartoon again.

I ordered a new graphics tablet from Amazon last week and am just waiting for that sucker to appear though the post. I am at university at the moment have been working on a new website to host it in my down time. I am working with a quirky design, but it will be centred around the comic and therefore gives me more incentive to keep up with it at least on a regular basis.

I have also been looking into having it placed into the student newspaper. It would be such a boost to my confidance as an artist and cartoonist to have my comic published, even if the paper is free and tends to come out whenever it feels like it rather than on a regular basis.

I am working on a new format for the comic. I will continue to do the full page ones which I am used to doing, but will also be producing short strips about a 1/5th of the height of an Af page (like the ones which normally appear in a newspaper.) Much like some of my favourite online web comics such as Ben, Faux Pas and the like. Full pagers like Awkward Zombie, Manly Guys Doing Manly Things and VG Cats still have a warm place in my heart, but I like what Tim over at Ctrl+Alt+Del has done; producing a regular full sheet comic and seperate 'sillies' in news print format. Of course, this is a very casual hobby (though not as casual as it was in the past) and so it won't be updated as much as the professionals do so.

Gonna pull out some tasters soon, I have only a few weeks of uni left to suffer through and then its a long summer with a few projects to work on.

BUBS: 13th May.

Quick update on my progress with Build Upper Body Strength...

The going is slow, I've managed to get to the gym once a week since my original post of BUBS as I've been so busy with other things. I did a lot of cardio on Monday and Tuesday; walking to and from the Lowry when I was working on The As Yet Impossible, not to mention spending all day on my feet when there. However, I have eaten fast food a few times this week which is unfortunate but I assure you, much needed/deserved.

Speaking of diet, I've managed to inject a bit more protein into mine. I'm trying to eat at least one or two eggs a day, usually scrambled as its the easiest way to condense two eggs into one meal. Typically if it isn't a scrambled egg sandwich, fish finger sandwich or either of the two with cheese, its Eggy Bread & cheese with Fish Fingers and Baked Beans. Other meals such as breakfast is usually cereal and a coffee, lunch when I am in halls (which I think I have been this week) has been Tuscan Bean or Tomato soup.

I'm a little let down with the fast food, I think if I hadn't have had McDonalds three times this week I probably would have done better sooner, but like I mentioned in my last post I am under no delusion that this is a short term project.

I'll probably leave it another two weeks or so before posting the next post on BUBS, as I have quite a few essays and assessments to worry about, but I shall continue to eat right and might strive to get to the gym at least twice in one week!

Please note, the pictures are taken on my phone as you can see; the angles and lighting will change as well as...  well, I've just got out of the shower and am ready for bed, of course I am in my pjamas. Love it or leave it people!

A follow up

This is a follow up post, or rather a continuation of my earlier micro-essay on Cheerleading (Cheerleading, the case for.) It is a videeo covering the issues regarding the classification of high school Cheerleading in the USA (split in two parts.)

Please take the time to watch them even if Cheerleading isn't something you are interested in, it will change your opinion of us!

A comic I found

Thought I would post this for the sake of those who do not know whether to follow their dreams.

The As Yet Impossible Symposium

For today and tomorrow I have been and will be a volunteer facilitator for a symposium at the Lowry entitled The As Yet Impossible (TAYI)

TAYI is a two day event which is focusing on the future. The participants are a number of experts in their field which range from performance practitioners, artists, designers, animators, producers, scientists, physicists and so on. The overarching concept is to think of what we, as yet, cannot achieve by means which are available to us through technology.

Today's main focus seems to be how we can change what and how much we experience through our senses. What the future of our senses might be, what augments can we make to them. How our senses are effected when one is lost or disabled, how our senses can be tricked or employed in a different way. The exploration of these topics was done using none-typical means for what you might expect a symposium to use. A series of workshops ran throughout the day which delved into the subject of sense, art, technology, nature, the future, the present, society etc and there is more to come tomorrow.

My role today was to blog about what was going on, to (try and) consolidate the information being fed back to the central hub (where I was stationed) for publication online.

It was very difficult, I could tell from the information I was receiving that the session facilitators were witnessing an almost stream of conciousness as the academics discussed such complex topics. It was exciting to be there at a time when these ideas were in their infancy, and being discussed by the bright thinkers of their respective disciplines. Having the mix of scientists, creators, performers and so on in attendance meant we could discover new ideas in such succession, it made it hard to clearly get the information into print.

Tomorrow will be more focused on the future, on where we can go without technology and how we want, or whether we want it to augment or diminish how we interact with our us and our environment.

Follow the event on its blow, www.theasyetimpossible.wordpress.com where you can find the information from today and subsequent publication of information for the remainder of the event. You can also view live tweets from the event on its blog page, or on the page of the events tweeter, Hannah Nicklin.

Game Review: Portal & Portal 2

Ok I am going to admit something here. As a huge fan of the Portal series since Portal originally hit the shelves back in October 2007 I might have fired up Portal 2 with an already enthusiastic and rose-tinted view. What I found only confirmed my expectations.

Portal 2 is a first person shooter (FPS) puzzle game which carries on from its predecessor Portal. Based on the concept of the manipulation or reality through portals which preserve linear momentum. If that sounds complicated, watch this:

That is the teaser trailer for Portal, as you can imagine the game play is innovative and refreshing from other FPS's which I am not so much a fan of.

The story of Portal 2 revolves around your character from the original game; Chell. After being subject to numerous rounds of testing in the Aperture Science Computerated Enrichment Enviroment, and almost being murdered several times by the psychotic testing mainframe AI known as GLaDOS, Chell eventually finds her way out of the laboratories and to the surface which is where Portal leaves us. Portal 2 Is the continuation of that story, where you find out after losing conciousness from the final fight with GLaDOS in the previous game, you are returned to the Aperture facilities to recuperate (This was later ret-conned in a patch, the ending was added with an ambiguous robotic voice approaching Chell from behind and dragging her back into the Aperture underground-complex before she lost conciousness.)

You are woken from suspended animation by a personality core called Wheatley and emerge from your chamber into the now-destroyed and decaying Aperture facility. Wheatley helps you stumble through the labs in order to escape, but in doing so you inadvertently reactivate GLaDOS, the passive-aggressive and completely insane facility control AI, who appears somewhat bitter about the fact that you killed her...

Without giving away any of the story, what follows is a slightly jilted round of further testing ala: Portal with a which quickly changes in a surprise twist! In Portal 2 the game goes deeper into the story of Aperture Science Laboratories, it's history and it's founder Cave Johnson.

The best feature for me is in the middle of the game where you learn about GLaDOS and where she comes from, and the secrets to why she is so bent on testing. GLaDOS received numerous awards from gaming magazines and websites such as 'Best Character' and 'Best New Character' from GameSpy and X-Play respectively, and Game Informer named her one of the 'Characters who defined a decade' in terms of storytelling. Most are citing her humour which is a form of passive-aggressive speak which actively changes in tone and intensity throughout the series (in both games.)

One of GLaDOS' unique qualities is her voice, which is synthesised from the voice acting of one Ellen McLain (who also has the Half Life series and Team Fortress 2 under her belt) through an auto-tune to give it that robotic and maniacle tone (here is a sample, from wikipedia). GLaDOS is by far the best reason to play Portal 2 besides the game play.

Another quality to Portal and Portal 2 is the complete mind-fuck of gameplay. We have seen this sport of manipulation of the game world in games such as Prey, but never has it been used in such a way as to encourage problem solving on the scale Portal has set. One comment made by GameSpy when awarding GLaDOS 'Best Character' was that the game could have got by without a story, which while in itself is pretty definitive of a lot puzzle games in the industry, Portal sets itself apart from the others such as Myst or the Professor Layton series as being almost exclusively character driven while not taking emphasis away from the mind-bending puzzles of physics and lateral thinking. Not to mention how much of an impact Portal made on internet culture creating such memes as "The cake is a lie" and the emergence of the Companion Cube.

Something which I am yet to experience but I highly anticipate as being another redeeming quality of the game is the incorporation of co-operative mulitplayer. You take one the duties of one of two co-operative testing initiative bots...

Atlas and P-Body are the two robots featured in the video above, which is something I cannot wait to try!

For anyone who is interested in puzzle games, FPS games or simple fancies a good bit of storytelling, seek out Portal 2 but I urge you not to do so until you have played Portal. A criticism which I am quick to offer of both games is that they are too short. I completed both Portal and Portal 2 in the evening of buying them, but their replay value is acceptable for fans of the game, but it may be worth waiting until there is an offer on to purchase both games, and certainly purchase them online through supplies such as gameplay.co.uk or play.com. On the PC, both games are available for purchase and repeated download through Steam which is a service available to PC which binds many PC games to a single account where you can purchase said games and download them over and over again which is handy if you are apt to losing your original disks.

It is my hope that the series continues in some form, though Chell's story recieved a definitive ending in Portal 2 I am certain Valve can come up with a way to continue the franchise which is so highly regarded in the gaming community.

Time to get it sorted: Build Upper Body Strength

Last year I was tickled pink. I wouldn't admit it then as I was trying to be casual and aloof about it, but I really was pleased about the state of my body. I spoke about it a few times last year. My weight has levelled off now, as I mentioned a month or so ago, and I am feeling a little dissatisfied again.

In my last post, I mentioned that I needed to build upper-body strength. While I may currently reside in a slimmer frame, it is not one which is capable of meeting all of my needs. I feel healthier, I can wear more layers which is a look I like going for once in a while, and I can generally go for longer in endeavours such as sport or physical theatre. I can also hold my breath for longer, like the sunshine a little more, get less heartburn than I used too, less back pain. Honestly the benefits of being my ideal weight outweigh the things I miss, such as playing with my belly when I got bored (which I sometimes still try to do) or having to wear less layers in the winter months and so on. My body is functional in that respect, but I need to work hard to make it more-so.

That is where my new Build Upper Body Strength plan comes in. Every week, or every fortnight depending on time restrictions I plan on updating the blog with my progress on building upper body strength which I will need for my Cheerleading, Gymnastics and to enhance my body confidence. I wasn't going to mention it, even though I have lost the puppy fat I am still not 100% about how my body looks. This is me doing something about that!..

The above is me, as of today. That is, as of about half an hour ago from writing this post. As you can see from the above images, my frame has taken a beating. You can see the stretch marks around my tummy and you might see them around my arms. I don't mind the stretch marks so much, but I find them a good reminder to myself not to over-indulge. Another thing you may notice is the love handles. Alas, these are the hardest things for men and women to get rid of when trying to improve their image through diet and excercise. A few people I know are quite to state when they though I looked ill when I'd finished losing weight. As ill as I ever looked, I'd never lost those bad boys.

My goals for Build Upper Body Strength are:

1. Increase the muscle mass on my chest, shoulders, back and arms.
   As you might see, there is the tiniest hint of definition in these muscles already. This is due to the lifting and pushing I do already in Cheer and gymnastic tumbling. If I am to be able to support my own body weight on my arms, and complete a chain of back-handsprings, I will need these muscles to be as lean as possible, at least lean enough to match my legs.
2. Get rid of my love handles
   These fuckers are gone. Seriously, their days are numbered. I don't know how to do it, I mean it's fat and fat is all the same, but I can't shift that shit for some reason. They will go though, mark my words!
3. Get an arse.
   Ok, so maybe this one is for vanity's sake. One of the areas I am uncomfortable with at the moment is the bottom of my bottom, the back of my front, the vertical smile. My skin stretched everywhere I used to carry weight. You can see this on my tummy, on my upper arms, and to an extent on my chest. You can't see it on my bum, but trust me when I tell you it's there, and it isn't pretty.  I am aiming for as much of a straight line as my hips will allow from the end of my ribcage to the start of my thighs. Somewhere in there I'd like to have a nice arse, so lets see what happens!

Let's keep it at that for now. Sometime soon, after I git the gym, rearrange my diet and work out some of the specifics of my new project, you will see pictures of my progress. I'm not foolish enough to believe that this will happen in a matter of weeks. My goal is pride, that is, the bank holiday weekend of August (just after my birthday.)

I have a holiday to Czech Republic in the first half of August which I am sure you will hear about. It's a sports/cheer holiday so it's not as if I won't be getting exercise then, but hopefully at that point I'll have accomplished most of my goals.

Wish me luck!

Things that I have been working on during my break from Uni

I'm not one to be idle.

I figured this out during my first year of study at Salford Uni, it's something which started right after finishing my access course at Bolton Uni. Don't get me wrong, there will come times when I really, desperately need a break (as happened recently) but otherwise I find that I get impatient or fidgety if I have nothing to occupy my time with. Since leaving my access course and studying at university I have become something of a workaholic, I'll try and take you through it...

I consider university to be my full-time job. I focus on my studies actively and they take up a large amount of my time. Other things which I prioritise are my cheerleading, gymnastics and gym work/fitness. These activities take about 90% of my total time spent at Salford, the rest is shopping, social time and 'misc'. I do this to ensure I am getting the most out of my time spent on my degree in Salford, and let me tell you, it works. This year I have passed every module on my course with a Distinction. I hit a rough patch in February which may take the mark of one of my modules down to a merit, but I still hold high hopes that I will finish the year with nothing below a first. My lifestyle plays an important part in this of course. I do not drink or smoke, I do not take drugs. I don't enjoy clubbing, or nights out, or concerts (well, I've never been to a concert, but I'd imagine I'll be sat at the back asking everyone in front of me to kindly sit down so that I can see.) Maybe I'm lucky in this respect, I have my own ways of having fun, I dare say the way I choose to occupy my time currently is satisfying enough and I have a wonderful circle of friends.

However, about a week after starting my short break, I began to feel the itch. I need something to do, I cannot be idle, I start going a bit cabin-feverish. Luckily, I have quite a few interests I can pull out of the bag for such occasions.

I started playing with Photoshop again, reading up on the latest trends, styles and tutorials which I must say are as good as any book or magazine on the subject (I recently bough a magazine on the subject, and found startlingly similar tutorials in it as exist on the web.)

I may consider writing my own beginners tutorials, explaining some of the more simple tricks which I do not see explained very often such as feathering and layer masks which can me indispensable for graphic design and photo-manipulation.

This also led in time to my return to web-design. As mentioned in my previous post, I have spent a lot of time in the past week tweaking and poking and jiggling and playing with CSS and Wordpress (WP) themes. Given the popularity of WP as a blogging tool I have been keen to explore its functionality to the private blogger for some time. My good frient Antony's blog, along with many other sites I frequent such as theCHIVE use the WP engine which seemed to be highly customisable as well as functional and easily accessible. I could never use CSS and never turly unerstood how useful it is until I started reading around the subject area just before my holidays started. I set myself a task: to create a custom theme of my own design for syeonline by the end of the holiday, and as the previous post displays, I managed to do just that. I will continue to make themes as I can already see how I could improve the current one, or how I can make designs based on a different concept (I want to make one based on a painty, arts-and-crafty style motif next) and I didn't know there existed such things as child-themes and so on. I'll probably end up working on it over the summer.

Gaming wise its been pretty cool. Not only has there been some interesting patches made to World of Warcraft in recent months which I have been exploring, there has also been the release of Portal 2 which I completed in the first day, and is well worth what I payed for over on gameplay.co.uk. If you played Portal, or are maybe a fan of puzzle games, FPS's or just looking for a really good game to sink your teeth into, get Portal 2 (though I will advise you if you have not already played Portal, play that first!) Both can be bought and downloaded through Steam. I also managed to try Final Fantasy XIV and unfortunately it did not live up to my expectations. I tried it for the first two or three days, and was not at all enthusiastic about playing it. I may try it again soon as I have heard there has been another patch released, but I will not be paying for a subscription for it in its current form. I have to say, considering how much I loved FFXI, I am very disappointed in Square-Enix.

Finally, my other guilty pleasure this holiday has been my gymnastics. I have been working every day, or every other day, on nailing some of the tumbles which have eluded me for some time. I am now a lot more confident at my back walkovers now and even attempting front walkovers. Also I am a lot less disoriented when chaining tumbles together (for example, Roll > Handstand Roll > Cartwheel and so on.) and am able to hold myself for much longer in a handstand.

The problem with most of my gymnastics isn't my flexibility. Although I do need to be more flexible to accomplish some of the tumbles I am attempting, I am actually more flexible than the average guy. One of the issues I have is the distribution of weight over my whole body. My main exercise is waking. I walk everywhere and as such, I have very strong legs. Both my thighs and calves carry a lot of weight, so much that the muscle on my upper body isn't strong enough to support it. Therefore I require more balance to hold a handstand, and more power to kick my legs over in a back walkover. The only way I can change this is by gaining more upper body strength, which of course will happen in time with regular gym and cheer workouts. For me, it isn't happening fast enough, this may be due to my vegetarian diet (being naturally low in high quality proteins.) I've been considering protein shakes, but I do not yet know how I feel about supplements. More on that story as it develops...

I have been working on my flexibility as well mind. It's painful work, but if it gets me my tumbles easier, I am willing to do it...

New blog en-route

I've been hard at work creating a new design for the blog. I plan on making the jump to wordpress soon, and have spent the past two weeks figuring out how the themes work, I'm pretty proud with what I've managed to come up with...

It still needs a little bit of tweaking but it's gonna be sweet! Don't worry, nothing should change with the blog when I make the jump, except it will be more functional, accessible and easier to update (I hope.) Look forward to www.syeonline.co.uk in the not-too-distant future!