Hello ladies and gentlemen,
This is my last time I will be posting, but it is time to end on bang (or whimper). So much has happened as always and it is time to jump into the thick of it.
The Wire
I am not even going to lie, this has been possibly one of the most grim seasons I have watched of The WIre. Bad stuff just happened everywhere and it was just horrific at times.
Bubbles: I really hope this character gets some significant help. He was pushed to desperation to try to get rid of his attacker issue and the poison he made wound up killing his best bud. He was just devastated by his loss that he even tried to hang himself. I think he’s gonna need more than rehab to truly comeback from this one. It is not the same as when Johnny OD’d. You could tell from the sound of his voice that he was devastated. Even the cops that he turned himself into did not want to lock him up because he was filled with so much sorrow. Hopefully, he will get some help.
Randy: What the hell! How are you going to go and kill what amounts to his mom just because he snitched. It is bad enough that he has tormentors and everyone avoids him, but not he does not even have the luxury of having a home. More importantly, if it was reported that he was having so many issues, why did the police/foster care not move him to another location that was far away from Baltimore. It is clear that no one is going to trust him, and everyone was just going to beat on him whenever possible. On another note, I found out that he is Prop Joe’s great nephew. Who knew right?
Nammond: I am glad to see that at the end of season 4, he was in a good house that was pushing for him to succeed. It is funny how him and Colvin really formed a good bond overtime. I am not certain we will see too much of Nammond any more, but it is nice to know that he has a chance to get away from the bad stuff on the street.
Webae: I found the last talk he had with his wife to be really shocking. In the end, he came to a realization that his son was not built for thug life. However, Colvin told him that he had potential to be so much more. When he stated that who would not want to get away from this kind of life if they could do anything else, that made me smile. In the end, I think he realized that while you can be built to do this, and be tough, you will either end up dead or in jail, which is bad. I mean, look at the rest of the Barksdale Organization, dead or in jail.
MCU: So at the end of the season, everyone seemed to pull back together for one final investigation into Marlow. I have the feeling that they are not going to stop until they get him this time. I was not too surprised to see McNulty finally joining the group in response to Bodie’s death. I know they are going to have an even harder time catching him though, especially since no one uses phones anymore.
Michael: This kid is going to become a new terror. He is ruthless, and he has a brain in his head. Those two things will make him very deadly. It was interesting to see him and Nammond’s character switch, as he became more of a soldier instead of another kid watching out for his younger brother. Furthermore, the way he had his dad disposed of was just brutally. I thought they were going to shoot the man, but instead they beat him to death.
Carcetti: I like the fact that he is actually trying to do the right thing. However, I have a feeling that he is going to have to push harder if he wants to actually get things done. He had a start when he got all the public service workers to actually get on the streets to clean up, do repairs, and tow cars, but he will need to do more if he wants the support to actually fix the city. You can clearly see that he is tired of all the politics behind trying to get the simplest of things. I mean, even visiting the governor was a pain because he was always “busy.” I’m curious to look up how things continue in the next season.
Omar: Omar is still Omar, but how much longer will he be here.
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Just One More Daily
Basically for this one, I found a nice public domain background and added a special line about DS106. I rather like this one simply because it was simple and rather colorful. It all seemed to really merge together to create a cool background. Another reason I am proud of it is because it just looks cool! I mean seriously, look at those sweet colors
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Tutorial Time
http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/swap-shop/
Tutorial
– Come up with some crazy idea for an item to sell. The more unrealistic it is, the better.
– Have a good audio recording device. I personally used the one that was built into my laptop.
– If you can, try to get a friend to help you with this assignment by being another character in the recording (they will typically be the person asking you questions about the product).
– Try to make it 30sec-1min in length.
– Remember, the more inventive the item, the more you can get carried away with it! Enjoy!
Tutorial: http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/whats-in-your-gullet/
– Grab three containers of things you drank last.
– Arrange them in a pyramid fashion.
– Provide ample light to clearly make out what drinks they are.
– Take a picture.
– Explain why you like these. Also explain if you were doing anything special while drinking these.
– You should aim to maybe have a paragraph about each drink.
– Don’t be afraid to add more than a paragraph each!
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Leaving My Mark
So, I left a couple of things in ds106, for those brave enough to endure this class. While I have no real links to the daily creates (I looked trust me), here are the assignments I left behind:
Texture Creator
http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/texture-creator/
Using any creative means (drawing, sculpting, digital media, building blocks, etc.) create an object that is an example of a texture. Furthermore, create the opposite texture as well and phtograph them together. For example, if you created something to represent a smooth surface, create arough surface to show contrast.
Story Time Fun Time!
http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/story-time-fun-time/
Tell ds106 a fantastic tale! Add sound effects, epic music, and colorful and creative descriptions to bring your story to life. It should roughly be a 2-5 minute story. Make sure you make it nice and entertaining!
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Of Finals
Most folk outside of Baltimore ain’t aware of an organization known as the New Day Co-Op. We organized East Baltimore and brought West Baltimore in with us as well. With Baltimore united and business moving smoothly, we had troubles coming soon, specifically with leadership. “Call it a crisis of leadership.” I always said. With this in mind I opted for spearheading the Co-Op. In no time, I was making myself known in the Co-Op.
In the end, I was the Co-Op president. I was bringing in the goods, and keeping the peace between all of us. Business continued to boom. However, we began to realize that business ain’t always gonna be so good. We needed to expand, but it needed to be somewhere else; somewhere out of plain sight. We needed to have an escape plan; so we met up to discuss. Immediately, people began to start aiming towards West Baltimore. After hearing the 2nd or 3rd support to that idea, I responded, “Why is it that every Baltimore n!##&# think that running the fuck away means crossing downtown? Shit, you should be in New York or Philly or some shit.” It was not until after the meeting that one of my crew told me about a place that was off the radar entirely. The Co-Op needed a good escape, but more importantly, if it was outside of Baltimore, we could expand without too much hassle. My boy hooked me up with some cat down in Fredericksburg, which was further than I expected.
I met this guy, who seemed to be good for supporting the Co-Op. The first thing we needed was a venue to meet at. So, we took a little walk, and I saw three spots:
We had suitable meeting spots and I decided it was time to get the Co-Op together, in Fredericksburg this time. It was not long till we met, and this time, I brought my boy from VA to meet with us. When the Co-Op gather, I was informed that some Five’O got the word on the package, and now the Co-Op was short on goods. Our VA contact believed it was a good time to begin in Fredericksburg; call it a back up plan so we could still make some money on the side. Seeing as how we were still unknown to the VA Five’O, the Co-Op decided we could hide ourselves by settin’ up a legitimate front.
In order to keep the Co-Op together against a much longer distance, we needed some communication. However, no burners, and no pagers. That’s when one of the Co-Op suggested we go online with this; no one would have suspected it. Since we now had some new assistance, it was time to see how dedicated he was to the Co-Op. I left him with some words of wisdom:
A couple of days later, after I returned to East Baltimore, he stops by the shop and shows me what he has for us.
“Now you’re lookin’ official. I got this joint set up so only the the Co-Op has access to this.” I was told. He had everything set up using some real secure shit. The site was set up to exclusively keep Baltimore and Fredericksburg on the same page. He knew me all to well. The next thing we needed was some boys to work for the Co-Op down in VA. I told him to keep it peaceful down there. “Scare up a hornet’s nest, no telling who’s gon’ get stung.” Was my advice. The youngin’ returned a simple nod, and hopped to it.
Little, by little, my board began to get cleaned up.
I got word on the package from Vondas later that day and called the Co-Op together once more, to ensure everything was moving normally again. I was gettin’ good news across the board. However, our new guy reported that we were now up and running in Fredericksburg VA. Hell, youngin’ even gave us a demo of his recruitment:
<Process explanation>
This was beyond interesting (I don’t have a word for it really).
Using various applications (PowerPoint, Camera, Audacity, etc.) I put together this story piece by piece. Coming up with it was rather simple, but finding assignments that successfully aided the story was a different story.
For starters, I decided to go with a mashup that I made last week to begin the story. I figured I had to start somewhere, and this was the best place to start. Once I had that starting place, I began to think about what my character and organization needed. That was when it hit me! They generally met in a rather nice conference room, so I looked at buildings with good conference rooms and got pictures. No assignment was really connected to it, but they were grabbed from Twitter posts.
Following this, I looked for more interesting assignments to assist in story telling, and that is when I saw the spubble assignment. Rather than base it around me, I based it around me (Prop Joe that is). I think the picture worked out fine, and it did feel like it conveyed a message. The next step was for me to incorporate the website logo I had designed last week as well. This weaved into the story easily and worked better than creating an actual website (which was another option I considered, but then tossed out due to time constraints). With that done, the notes on the fridge or board assignment showed up, and I knew that would be perfect throw in towards the end of the story. Surprisingly, PowerPoint can really make the assignment simple and fun to do.
Lastly, I recall Jim stating he would love to see a New Day Co-Op commercial. Yeah, well that did not happen. However, I did want a radio ad. I based this one off of the ds106 radio commercial assignment, but again, I revamped it to be specifically based around the New Day Co-Op. I rather enjoyed making it, and I felt the need to have some form of audio in this assignment.
Once all the assignments were done, I tried to make a Joe-esque story (it was rather difficult, he is a man of few words that aren’t business related) and weave everything together. I think it turned out rather well, and I’d love to hear some specific feedback.
Assignments Used:
http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/create-your-own-superpac/
http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/post-it-notes-and-grocery-lists/
http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/your-very-own-spubble/
http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/ds106-radio-commercial/
<End Explanation>
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The Truth and some Super Good Advice
Before I leave, I think I’ll leave some words of wisdom, and a little feedback here as well. This class has required so much Patience and TIme. The work load seemed pretty heavy from time to time, and I feel like there were not enough tutorials overall to assist in creating some of these unique things. If you are the kind of person to enjoy this, this class is fun! If you aren’t, I really would say look elsewhere.
I will admit we did some interesting things, and I now have an appreciation for many different aspects of art and video. Furthermore, some of these assignments were also fun to create. Overall, this class is a mixed bag. Some stuff you will like, others you will hate (such as GIFs).
In Conclusion,
I hope you enjoyed reading this and seeing the last works from me. It has been an interesting ride.
Hope you enjoyed!
