From Woodworking to Cooking

Well, it's seems, interestingly enough, that my love for creating things has gone beyond woodworking, music composing, and sound designing to encompass... cooking. I love it because it's a whole new level of creation because, with cooking, not only are you creating something that is tangible... but something you can seriously experience, in this case by taste. There's just something, though, about working on something for a couple hours and seeing it all come together with each step, and then having the finished product in all its glory coming out of the oven (or in a pot on the stove, as the case may be).

Of course, this cooking thing isn't entirely new. I've almost always cooked/baked stuff every once and a while. But it wasn't until a couple weeks ago that I actually started to really enjoy it.

It all started rather simply with some Bisquick pancakes with chocolate chips in them and a side of bacon. But then suddenly I was looking up recipes for hamburger rolls, found a good one, tried it, and everyone that tried them (including myself) really liked them a lot. This is the recipe I used: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/burger-or-hot-dog-buns/detail.aspx

And then of course I thought to myself... I'm making hamburger rolls... surely we need some hamburgers to go with them. So I got out some ground beef, mixed in some spices that I thought might be good, and then got them going on the griddle. And this, my friends, was the result:

A couple days later I suddenly thought it would be a good idea to make some Pizza Hut style bread sticks to go with spaghetti. The dough recipe I got from here: http://farmchickskitchen.blogspot.com/2009/07/recipe-for-pizza-hut-style-breadsticks.html and the seasoning recipe I got from here: http://www.food.com/recipe/breadsticks-pizza-hut-style-137629

Again turned out excellently, although I think they needed more saltiness.

Then a couple days after that.... What I think is the tops so far... Pizza Hut style pan pies. http://www.food.com/recipe/pizza-hut-original-pan-pizza-91827

Result:

Absolutely amazing, although I didn't have mozzarella so I had to use cheddar. Next time I want to get mozzarella and use it because I think that is going to make it even better (if that's possible). I also want to make the crust stuffed. But, even so, utterly brilliant recipe.

Again, as with woodworking, it's just so much more 'rewarding' spending time and energy creating something that is actually tangible (as opposed to computer work where it's all just sittin' there on your screen) and—in this case—edible.



Do Video Game Developers Hold The Future of life-like AI?

This afternoon as I was driving I suddenly had a "vision" of the future of technology. Now, obviously, it wasn't a vision vision, in the prophesying sense. But it was one that I honestly have to say I believe is very likely to happen. I'm sure this is a prediction that has been given before. Heck, maybe I even read someone's similar prediction a while back, but don't remember reading, only remembering the details and assuming I came up with them.

Anyway, I was thinking about the future of video games and wondering what the next huge leap will be. Now, obviously there are many possibilities. More in-depth Kinect/motion interaction. Better graphics. More diverse and immense stories. But I started thinking, of all things, about voice interaction. With the latest developments with "Project Milo" and its fair use of voice interaction, and more minor things like the Nintendo DS's microphone that requires you to make noises or blow into for certain games, I have to wonder, is this something we're going to be seeing a lot more of as developments in technology progress?

Now, what am I specifically thinking about here? Well, I'm not merely thinking about voice interaction as an end in itself. It's more like voice interaction that is dependent on the artificial intelligence within video games. Again, with things like Microsoft's Xbox 360 it is becoming quite clear that with each new system, boundaries are being breached. As video game consoles become capable of handling more and more information, the possibilities become more and more numerous. So... imagine a game like Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, arguably one of the most 'open world'/'endless possibilities' video games ever developed to this date (though probably soon to be succeeded by Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim). But take that open world/potential environment, and instead focus it into the video game's characters.

Okay, now let me bring together what I'm setting up here. In future video game consoles, speech recognition/voice interaction becomes a huge part. Suddenly you are more immersed in the stories of the video games than ever before. You have to literally act as your character. Now, at first I'm sure we'll start out with games with multiple choice dialogue, you pick which one you want and then actually have to say it yourself (instead of just selecting it via the controller). But imagine this idea of the AI, melded with the 'open world'/'endless possibility' concept that Oblivion is helping us to realize. AI characters in the video game that have been programmed so efficiently and so well that they will respond to pretty much anything you audibly say. Sure, maybe some limitations. Like, say you're playing a future version of Dragon Age, and you say to one of the characters "I want a Coca-cola." to which they would reply something like "What is that?" or "What are you talking about?". But heck, what if the game was programmed so well that it could even have them say "What is 'Coca-cola'? I'm not familiar with that." To which, perhaps, you could even explain to them what it is and they would reply by saying something like "Sounds interesting."

But do you see what I mean, though? Pretty much life-like artificial intelligence in video games. Hold life-like conversation with the game's characters, not being restricted to "on-rails" dialogue, as it were. With voice actors for the characters recording so much dialogue that they could respond to pretty much anything you say. See, to me, that sounds like probably the coolest thing ever in the future of video games. That would bring such a new level of immersion to video gameplay.

But again, it is entirely dependent on the development and perfecting of speech recognition technologies—which things like the Dragon software seem to be demonstrating is truly being perfected—and video game consoles and game/cartridges with the capacity to house all that memory and intelligence. Plus, of course, voice actors who are willing to spend weeks and months recording endless dialogue to the endless possible things you, the player, could say.

It actually gives me chills just thinking about how awesome it would be.

But..... as a semi-rabbit trail... I also predict the kind of sick things we would probably see as a result of this. I can just see it now. Because the characters in the game are so life-like, Players become attached and even obsessed with them because they start to view them as real life people/friends. They end up forsaking their real lives for a fake one. Heck, look what happened with World of Warcraft, even without things like life-like AI and speech recognition/voice interaction! And then of course you have to have the obligatory occurences of mentally unorthodox people who end up developing very unhealthy relationships with certain of these life-like characters and end up getting "married" to them. C'mon, you have to admit... It totally would happen. Similar and weirder marriages have occurred.

Anyway, my "vision of the future" even took this whole thing a step ahead. Suddenly I had this idea in my head: Video game developers will ultimately be what sparks the development of real life Artificial Intelligence..... Robots/Androids will become realized in a way more akin to how we see them in the average Sci-Fi flick. By the way, this is the reason why I included the above picture of the Japanese robot woman. Because, obviously, we are already close to realizing this prediction. But I'm just thinking that, if what I'm predicting about video games ends up being true, I just think that we will then see the development of more life-like robots. At least as far as dialogue interaction. Getting the robots to actually move and physically behave like humans is another matter. But perhaps this will see computers, phones, and, heck, cars, with an almost life-like artificial intelligence that you can have conversations with while on the way to work, or typing up something on your computer, or perhaps AI built into your house that will be connected to various (or all) technologies in the house. Lights, air conditioner/heaters, kitchen appliances, televisions, and so on. Similar to JARVIS in Iron Man.

It's a pretty crazy thought. But I honestly have to say that, with all the developments we're making in technology with each decade that passes... all this is seeming more and more possible to me. Of course, at first, things with this life-like AI will cost so much only Donald Trump will be able to afford it. But, eventually, just like Blu-rays and DVDs with VHS tapes, etc., it will start to become the norm, and before long it will be affordable and everyone will have it.

But then, once again, you're probably going to have the obligatory mentally unorthodox person who ends up marrying one of these life-like robots/androids or car/house AI systems. I'm sure someone's already done it with a robot even in their limited development in this era.

So... That's my future prediction. My 'vision of the future'. Five years ago I would probably have said "No. Never." But in just five years, we seen such vast technological developments... I honestly can't say "Never" anymore. And I really do have a feeling that if anyone is going to introduce us to life-like AI that we can interact with, it's going to be the video game industry.

Where In Heck's Sake Have I Been?

I just saw a blogpost by my sis and bro-in-law and it suddenly hit me like a bat outta the water.... I've been so busy lately I haven't done a blogpost in over a month! Gasp... The horror! Well, things have been pretty hectic ever since I did the dumb—but responsible—thing and went and got a job...albeit some confusing things are happening and I haven't been working so much... but that's in God's hands. Anyway, aside from that, I've been up to my rears in music-related stuff, acting-related stuff, and podcast-related stuff. And I'm only just now starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel... of course that might be heaven and this is the tunnel of death, but...

So, hopefully soonish I will be getting back on track with this blog and, specifically, my TV progrim (you have to say "program" like that: 'progrim'. That's how old dames say it) reviews.

Sorry about the delay, but that's the way the puppy crumbles when you want to make an omelet.

Comments Open

Whoops! Many apologies; it just occurred to me last night that I never did anything with the comment settings as far as changing the default (which is "registered users only"). So sorry about that! The settings have been changed so that now anyone can post a comment.

Again, sorry about that; I don't know why I didn't think of that sooner.

February, Pizza, and Sleeping

So it's February 1st! Huzzah! I am very excited to be out of the long dark of January. I really have never liked January, and it's not that nothing fun happens in January, it's just a very long, sluggish month in which your emotions are going haywire because your blended disaster of being sad that Christmas is over, bewildered that Christmas and last year in general went so fast, tired of cold weather, ready for Spring, depressed because you know it's only the first month of the year so you got a long way to go before warm weather comes, and many other things. So, in that light, January is really my least favorite month of the year. I can't think of any month I dislike more. Again, some truly great stuff happens in January. But overall, for me personally, the bad outweighs the good.

In February you're at least excited because you know the very next month is March, which means Spring! Of course... if you're weather is as crazy as ours here in New Jersey.... sometimes Spring don't start when it say it do. I remember back in 2006 it actually snowed in April! However it was weird because it snowed early in the morning and it was freezing outside... but then almost as soon as the afternoon hit, the sun was out and, no kidding, the temperature was up to about 65° and beautiful.

But, anyhoo, I'm excited about February. Because February also means Superbowl Sunday—for which my family gathers together and we have great food and a great time while the game plays in the background—as well as Valentine's Day—which also requires another get-together for my family in which we have something red for dinner; usually stuffed shells with spaghetti sauce poured over them. Yeah. My family loves to get together and eat. What can I say. I love it.

Ooh, I made, using a recipe from my brother, Greek pizza for dinner tonight. It was delicious, however not as good as when my brother made it. I haven't figured out quite what I did differently yet, but something wasn't right. Perhaps not enough cheese. Actually I know what part of the reason was. The recipe called for sprinkling of parsley on the top, but I put a little bit of oregano on accidentally at first before realizing. Again, it was still good, something was just off a bit. I will post the recipe on here when I get the chance.

So it occurred to me this morning after I slept through two different alarms... my curse is coming back again. When I sleep certain hours, I end up drastically over-sleeping. And I've said it before and I'll say it again: I would rather get too little sleep than too much sleep. The feeling you get throughout the day when you've had too much sleep is just too awful. That's how I felt today. Sporatically, I would get into this mindset where I didn't care about anything. The moon could fall on top of my house, and I wouldn't have cared. I was just so tired.

During my unemployment, my hours of sleep are usually 2:00am to 10:00am. However I'm really having this problem of sleeping past 10:00am, getting 8+ hours of sleep that I don't even need. So I'm thinking I'm going to have to move my sleeping hours back, reluctantly. My problem is that it's in the evening hours that I feel the most creative or energetic, so those are the hours (9pm-2am) that I either work or play games or watch movies or what have you. So it's really hard thinking about having to go to sleep earlier. But probably what I will do is try 12:00am to 8:00am and see if that changes anything. If not... then I'll try for earlier. So, we shall see what happens. Like I said, I do this reluctantly, but I just can't go through the day feeling this way any longer. Plus it's probably better that I get my body adapted to an early-bedtime/early-wake-up so that I will be prepared for when I, Lord-willing, find a job.

I hate sleep...... But then I love it. I don't think there is anything in this life that I love and hate more than Sleep. It's a devilish angel.

The end. Goodnight.

John Barry (1933 - 2011)

Woke up this morning and eventually checked my Twitter account when something caught my attention. I saw that John Barry was a trending topic. And immediately my heart sank because I knew that could mean only one thing.

John Barry had such a unique style. Ever since he 'enchanted' audiences with his famous James Bond Theme (which, unfortunately, due to contractual mishaps was and still is to this day credited to Monty Norman, when Barry is indeed the one who composed it) he threw one great score out there after another. Admittedly, in my opinion, it took him until From Russia With Love to really utilize his style, at least for the James Bond films. But even Dr. No has some classic and memorable moments in it. And film after film he demonstrated that, while he had a central style to work from, he could bring something new, unique, and utterly enchanting to his scores.

It's really depressing to see yet another truly remarkable film composer go. And it's always weird when someone passes away just after you had some kind of interaction with them only a few days before. Of course I wish I had met him in person, but I'm referring to the fact that I've, over the last couple weeks, been watching the Bond films and, specifically, listening to one of my favorite of his scores, The Living Daylights. So it, for some reason, just makes it feel more surreal that he's gone.

Not only did he have the ability to get you to the edge of your seat with this adventurous, chase, or combat-centered pieces, he also had an annoying habit of making you want to commit suicide because of the deep depression that his more emotional scores provoked (specifically his little known TV film score, The Gathering). And while he was, at times, influenced by the times as far as music styles go, he knew how to use these styles, and how to use them to his advantage without his scores coming off sounding like every other score during each era (case-in-point would, again, be his score for The Living Daylights in which he masterfully utilizes an 80's synth-pop drumbeat through much of the score that is very effective).

Of course, the James Bond scores weren't all he was good and known for. "The Girl with the Sun in Her Hair" (composed for a commercial if I remember correctly) is an amazing piece, and his other piece "What A Question" is a personal favorite and one I actually have used for one of my YouTube series for the last couple years. And one of my other favorites was his theme for The Persuaders. There are really too many great scores and pieces to list.

I highly recommend getting a hold of the John Barry Themependium. It's a masterpiece collection of all his greatest one-shot, tv, and film score compositions. You can purchase it from Amazon here:

http://www.amazon.com/John-Barry-Themependium-Monty-Norman/dp/B000NDJGC2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1296530007&sr=1-1

So, in closing, thank you, John Barry, for your wonderfully unique scores that I've practically grown up with. You were, and still are, a master film composer.

My prayers go out to his family and friends (and close fans) in this hard time. May God use this time to bring them closer to Him.

Drawing the TARDIS

I can't remember the last time I just sat down and drew something seriously. This morning I was feeling creative, and then it occurred to me: every true Doctor Who fan, at some point, has to draw the TARDIS. So this was the result:

It took roughly two hours to draw. I was feeling too lazy to actually color it, but I usually prefer plain pencil-drawings anyway. I used the cover of Steve Tribe's The TARDIS Handbook as a guide, and, because I couldn't find a ruler, I pulled off the top half of a CD case (a trick I learned when I was a kid) and used that.

Initially I drew it being struck by lightning, surrounded by one of those generic comic blast/punch 'balloons'. But I found that it was distracting too much attention away from the TARDIS itself, because it looked a little too jumbled. So I erased the blast-balloon, added more lightning (just for cool-ness' sake), and then colored in the surrounding areas, just to emphasize the TARDIS.

The words on the sign are all the same as the real thing, just written very very small. I thought that would bring it to life a bit more than just doing lazy squiggle lines. The "St. John Ambulance" symbol is the only thing I sort of cheated on. I was able to write "St. John" and then I got about as far as "Ambul-" before I started to run out of room, so I just sort of trailed it off with little squiggles. The symbol at the center of the St. John Ambulance logo is as close as I could get it, but it was a bit too difficult to draw it that small, so that one I also somewhat cheated on.

I'm not very happy with the "POLICE public call BOX" logo, as I've never been good at writing thick letters without them coming across as childish looking. But it serves it's purpose. The "Public Call" part I also had to cheat on because I couldn't make thick-white letters that small.

One of the things I wanted to do, but just wasn't feeling up to the task, was to actually draw in the detail of the wood. Perhaps I will revisit this drawing someday.

Anyway, below are some crude pictures I took with my cell phone of some of the work in progress:

At this point I got to into finishing it so I didn't take anymore. So, there you go. Happy Thursday!