The piano man

awww... look at the kitty playing piano...

Challenge: To be able to do my requirements for piano grade 3 exam in a week. 

Difficulty: 5/5.

Skills developed: Sight reading improvement. Increased piano dexterity. A renewed love for Meat Loaf.

Overview/Rant: Firstly I'll completely and honestly admit that I took this challenge out of fear of a certain Ms. Susan Bourke who has displayed infinite amount of patience at my lack of piano practice to date. The exam date is May but, as you will see, the pieces are quite difficult and need to be learned and rehearsed for months before the examination date. So I effectively used this blog as a study guide... [insert tongue sticking-out emoticon]

 Theory, scales, arpeggios and four-note-broken-chords make up for 20% of the test and are probably my strongest area at the moment. The other 20% is for sight tests and ear tests, all of which will come over time and practice. SO essentially my key area of concentration was my pieces...

So in order of difficulty...

EASY - Landler in A by Daniel Steibelt... which is unfortunately to available anywhere on youtube it seems. Well- imagine its easier than the other two... [insert smiley face emoticon]

MEDIUM - Wilder Reiter (Wild Horseman) by Robert Schumann... which I found played by what looks like a six year old... wow- how crap do I feel?

HARD - Prelude by Johann Sebastian Bach... okay... now they're taking the p*ss...

Hardest Parts: The left hand section in Wild Horseman and the entirety of Prelude. Also- watching kids a quarter your age doing it better than you ever could is a bit of a ball buster too...

Result: Well... I think Meat Loaf said it best when he said... (and we'll ignore what Susan said about the whole thing... [insert oh-dearie-me emoticon]

Recommendation: Piano is awesome- difficult if you actually try to do the grades. I can't really recommend it to anyone if they haven't studied piano before... BUT to those that quit and say "oh I wish I'd never quit..." then GO BACK TO PIANO! I quit when I was 15 and only came back to it a few months ago and it's the best decision I've made in a while.

Conclusion: I totally underestimated how much work I had to do for this exam... [insert omfg smiley face emoticon]

Special Thanks: Susan Bourke for her patience and encouragement. [insert super smiley face emoticon]

Next Challenge: It's the beginning of MYSTERY MARCH... this is where I do challenges WITHOUT telling you what they are... until after... obviously... or else I'd just have done nothing... an example, but I won't be doing, is "trying to start as many conversations about butter as possible in a week"... the challenges are 'mostly' harmless fun... [insert evil grin smiley emoticon]

Random Thoughts: Meat Loaf is awesome.

This post was bought to you by emoticons... cus a picture speaks a thousand blah blah blah...

Skip me with your best shot...

Okay... so I took some artistic license there...

Challenge: To learn to skip like a boxer in one week.

Difficulty: 3/5

Skills Developed: Basic skip techniques, the double skip, the criss-cross and the matador. This video below highlights the main ones. I attempted the cradle and the backwards criss-cross... but... yeah... epic fail...

Overview/Rant: Firstly- I'm two days late due to Valentines Day, laziness and procrastination (in reverse order of actual reasons for lateness...) Anyway- apologies for the delay... Back to the review... SKIPPING is awesome... wait, let me try that again.... skipping is AWESOME!!! Within 3 minutes you can work up a sweat, you can choose to go for an hour or a minute and all it requires is a rope and room to do it. It requires a lot of practice though. I only for the criss-cross in the final days and I didn't really get the matador at all. The simple single hop on one foot (see video) took me a few nights of practice to perfect. Really though- there's not much to say about it apart from that... here's a break down of the techniques learned- at different points...

8 seconds - double hop on both feet

14 seconds - double hop on one foot alternating

20 seconds - single hop on both feet

24 seconds - single hop walking forward

27 seconds - single hop walking backwards

30 seconds - the skier hop

34 seconds - the double skip

44 seconds  - the criss-cross

52 seconds - attempts the matador

1 min 9 seconds - epic giving up....

I originally planned on recording the techniques with backing music- but I couldn't continuously skip for several minutes without making a mistake... I think my matador days will have to wait... don't want to end up like this guy...

Hardest Part: The matador... 

Recommendation: Totally recommend this. Take the time to learn the techniques and hon them. I'm going to try maintain skipping as it can be done anytime and is a fantastic cardio workout. Honestly- not much to say except DO IT...

Conclusion: Great challenge- well worth the week and something I will probably continue to research to find more challenging techniques. 

Special Thanks: Luke Walsh for providing the new leather skipping rope.  

Next Challenge: Complete the fitness requirements for the Irish Army. There's a one minute press-up assessment, a one minute sit-up assessment, a 3.2km Run Assessment and a 10km loaded march. Check it out at:  http://www.62infantry.com/Annual_Fitness_Test.shtml

Random Thoughts: Maybe someday...

Life's a stitch...

Just a little epic knitting and epic looking into the distance...

Challenge: To learn how to knit and to knit a scarf in a week.

Difficulty: 1/5

Skills developed: Learned how to cast on, cast off and basic knitting.

Overview/Rant: The earliest example of knitting dates back to Egyptian times in the form of decorative socks... which probably lead to the first (and worst) fashion mistake of the millennium.

I began the knitting late Tuesday night with my 'awesome/legendary' mother getting me started with a quick knitting-for-idiots tutorial. She showed me the cast on and attached a row of 50 knots to get me started. (This was the entire length of the knitting needle)

I spent the better part of Wednesday to Friday knitting like a god (hey, someone's got to blow this trumpet). I observed a few things while knitting... 

ONE- women think it's cool

2- guys think it's 'gay' but are the first ones lining up to have a go

c- knitting on the bus is a guaranteed way of not having anyone sit beside you

iv- when you overhear two knackers discussing there up and coming court hearing, its time to hide the knitting needles and get the hell off the bus... 

So Friday night I had completed this much with one ball of wool...

This of course left me with a little dilemma- I only had one other ball of wool and there was no chance of me getting to the wool shop to buy more (plus- €7 a pop! F*8k that) so I had to wave goodbye to the aptly named Scarf 1.0 and welcome in a new era of scarf... it'd be sleeker and thinner than before with only 15 stitches to a line. 

But I was running out of time... I needed something to motive me... something to give me drive... that something came in the form of...

I was ready... I knitted... my god I knitted...

Then I went to a mates house for drinks...

Then I knitted drunk...

After several minutes, of what can only be described as 'epic-ripping-the-shit-outta-Steve,' my friends (who are so understanding of my choices in life...) decided to come up with knitting puns on famous films/songs/people/things... 

Casablanket / Wool Metal Jacket / Harry Potter and the Stitch / Lilo and Stitch / Dances with Woolves / Sow Patrol / Knitty O' Shea / Superstichus / Judge Thread / Knitting Hill / Knitty Knity Bang Bang / Knitwits / The Thin Blue Twine / Heard it through the Grapetwine / Lady in Thread / Knitty Women / Jeremy Needle / Aknitomy of Murder / Grey's Aknitomy / Robert Patternson / Twinelight / Good Wool Hunting / Wool Smith / Hey Yanrold / Yarnold Swatsnegar / The Land Before Twine / The Twining / Knit-up and Wool-ups / Alfred Stitchcock / Stitchy and Scracthy / Last of the Summers Twine / Where's Wooly / Wooly Harrilson / Wooly Allen / Woolfred Owen / Ragin Wool / Come Twine With Me / A F Wool / Wooliver's Travels / Wooliver Punkknit

 

I awoke the next morning/afternoon and 'hangover' I did have (english good speak yes?)... I picked up the scarf which had mysteriously dropped one stitch... to 14 stitches... do I stay on with the 14 stitches and hope that that missing stitch will not come back to bite me in the ass?

No... for a stitch in time... saves nine... *sigh*

I undid everything I'd done the drunken night before. I went back and found the missing stitch... the lucky son-of-a-stitch was reunited with his fellow stitches and together we finished scarf 2.0... Suffice to say...

So I present to you... Scarf 2.0... 

Bored now with having completed my challenge... I then pondered the different fashion statements on could make with a sexy hand knitted scarf... this lead to my next digression...

The 'Fonz'

The 'Rambo'

The 'Chamber Maid'

And lets not forget 'Jordi' from Star Trek

 

Hardest parts: Cast on and cast off. That is all. The rest is just awesome. I gave this challenge 1/5 cus it was simple and enjoyable- THAT SAID... I only knitted a scarf and I'm betting knitting anything non-rectangular shaped would be much harder.

Recommendation: DO IT.

Conclusion: Love it. Expect to get knitted related gifts this Christmas!

Special Thanks: Mum for the knitting assistance. Susan Doyle for the inspirational idea. Thanks to Margaret and Killian McCarthy who offered their assistance and equipment. Thanks also to DaLLan, Brendan, Celina, Erin, John, Kirsten and Alfla for their pun related goodness.

Next challenge: Fitness February is beginning- starting with me getting fit enough to get into the army... or pass their requirements to get in... read more at:

http://www.62infantry.com/Annual_Fitness_Test.shtml

Random thoughts: 

Rocket Propelled Grenade...

Challenge: To develop a video game in a week. I choose to use RPG Maker XP and develop my own adventure.

Difficulty: 5/5

Skills developed: Learned how to make my own RPG game and how to upload files on the net.

Get it here


The files needed to run it 
http://tkool.jp/products/rpgxp/eng/download.html


The game itself... (3 choices) 
http://rapidshare.com/files/336899263/Game.zip.html
http://www.box.net/shared/y4y2ssfskh
http://www.filefront.com/15374077/Game.zip




Steps involved


1.) Download RPG Maker XP and install it (sorry people- no idea if it runs on non-XP computers)
2.) Download the rapidshare file (post a comment if they're all gone- I'll re-upload it- check the comments section to see if there's a different link)
3.) UNZIP the rapidshare file (called game) and copy it into the INSTALLED DIRECTORY where you put RPG Maker.
4.) Click on GAME and it should run. Let me know if it doesn't! Thanks! 


Controls: x- menu. enter- action. arrow keys - walk. 

Overview/Rant: Holy f**k I'm exhausted. As you'll notice- I'm also two days late... DON'T CARE! I've managed to put off much IMPORTANT work to be done for college and school to do this... so, please ENJOY! Also- apologies for any glitches etc- let me know...  

Hardest Parts: The time taken to do everything. You have to be EXTREMELY careful when placing things as even one mistake can cause the complete game to glitch... for example- putting an enemy in a spot then forgetting to have him erased once you kill him... thus meaning infinite battles. Or building a switch that can only be activated via certain events... etc etc... MIND NUMBINGLY TECHNICAL! Seriously exhausting...

Recommendation: Glad I did it. I love RPG's so it was fun writing the dialogue and storyline (even if it is a super crap one). Do try this if you love RPG's. Don't try this if you like having a life... 

Conclusion: Dam hard challenge. As you can see I'm late by two days- but in my defense I did nothing Tuesday or Wednesday... so, yeah, whatever... ANYWAY- I hope it works- I've checked it a few times but hopefully it's fine. PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU FIND ANYTHING WRONG SO I CAN FIX IT!!! Cheers

Special Thanks: Conor Lynch for the suggestion. Rebecca Gimblett for test running the game (Rebecca: "You're a nerd Stephen...")

Next Challenge: Was supposed to learn the unicycle in a week- but failed to get access to one so I will be learning the violin instead. I must learn one song by the end of the week.

Random Thoughts: It was one hell of a journey... (game hint: streetlight people...)