Well, here we are at the end of week 3. I feel a lot more proficient in a lot of things than I did at the beginning of this week. I figured out how to easily screen shot and save things as pictures, something that I figured out this week. I also figured out that I can do things that seem hard and make them not seem as hard. Which means I need to stop underestimating what I can do with a computer (or my brain for that matter). Here is my week in review.
Adding Categories and a Menu
This task was relatively easy once I figured out where to go for the categories. It was self-explanatory what we had to do. Creating the actual menu was also easy when I used the tutorial posted on the assignment blog post.
Commenting:
http://www.c-mitchell21.com/assignments/png-is-the-way-to-go/#comment-31
I loved Carmella’s choice of picture and faces for Avon and Stringer. She did a great job with the post as well, helping anyone else who wants to try that assignment. Though after reading her post, I am not sure I am willing to try it (haha).
http://www.preservingtheelements.com/uncategorized/telling-a-story-in-five-frames/#comment-21
I really enjoyed looking at the pictures that Mike posted. At first I didn’t realize that the pictures were of the same buildings. I was confused. But upon a second look, I saw the story that he was trying to tell. It is a pretty upsetting series of pictures to look at. I see oppression as the most prevalent theme in these pictures.
https://soundcloud.com/tmobaird/self-help-tip-of-the-day-being
I liked this self-help tip. It is something that I try to do. Of course, playing a sport helps with that but I will try to stay active even after I stop playing. I also like how he gave us examples of ways to stay healthy as well as why it is good for us.
http://www.tmobaird.com/uncategorized/a-story-in-5-pictures/#comment-29
For some reason I love these five picture stories. It is true that a picture is worth a thousand words but in Thomas’s case he had to come up with a story that was convincing based on the pictures that he was given. I think he did a great job with it.
http://www.nixmemita.com/ds106/capturing-the-essence-of-dangelo-barksdale/#comment-19
I loved Nikki’s choice of character for which to do the Pinterest project. Especially because D has a distinct smile and attitude, which are completely different than the other people that he hangs out with.
Web 2.0 Story
This article was actually really interesting. You can find my blog post about it here. In case you want a synopsis, I basically said that both the Tumblr page and the Facebook page I consider storytelling within each post. Each post can be considered its own story. The pages as a whole, though, do not seem to be stories because they lack sequence. However, the author apparently contradicts himself saying in the beginning that they have to have sequence but then when he is explaining what he considers stories, they do not necessarily have sequence. So that confused me. Overall, though, it was an interesting read.
Daily Create 1:
Like I said in my blog post summarizing this daily create, it was fairly easy. I was weary when I saw the title but when I saw that there was a link to a generator I was all for it. It was really easy to think up and make and I am happy with how it turned out. I especially love the picture that was there when I searched “softball.”
The Wire: A visual assignment:
It was easy to choose because I stole Groom’s idea basically. I had seen it posted before and then I saw the picture on Instagram and I was like well well well, there is the wire in that picture. So I screen shotted it, saved it as a picture, cropped it and voila, we have a visual assignment and a blog post.
Visual Assignment: Triple Troll Epigraph
Before the class started I was creeping around on the assignments page and I saw this one and I was like, hmm this is something I am going to have to try. And then when I heard Bunk say “You’re not the run-of-the-mill kind of a$$hole are you, Jimmy? You’re a special kind of a$$hole,” I knew I had to use it. Because not only did he say it, several other people in the show could very well have said it. I chose Rhonda as the picture for obvious reasons and the same for Rawls as the speaker. It seemed pretty clear to me that either one of them could have easily said that quote from Season 2, Episode 2.
I made the picture using GIMP. I opened the picture of Rhonda that I found as a layer and then added the text and merged the layers and then exported. It was easy once I remembered that I had to export it rather than saving it.
This was a writing assignment, which I usually stay away from even though I’m actually okay at writing. I just prefer visuals because they are more fun for me. When I saw this assignment, though, and I thought back to everything that happened in Season 1, Epsiode 13. Jimmy had a lot to be thankful for in that episode. Not only did Kima not die, she was awake and talking; D was giving them all kinds of information; Bubbs called me McNutty—was it a term of endearment?; we easily got Bey; I didn’t tell Rawls where I didn’t want to go because Freamon warned me; and we successfully arrested most of the people on the Barksdale case. Sue, it took me a little longer than 10 seconds but that is because I am not Jimmy. I figured he could write down all of these things in 10 seconds, so I used them.
My final assignment: Design: Minimalism
I chose the minimalize your philosophy design assignment. I actually did two of them because I thought of a funny one—but then I remembered that I had to do one specific to an episode. Ergo, two for the price of one. My real one was for Stringer. In episode 1 of season 2, someone said “Stringer’s on top of his $hit, he’s on top of everything,” I figured this was a good motto for String, especially with Avon in jail now. Stringer has to be on top of everything. So I made Stringer’s motto in PowerPoint because that is what the example made me think of, plus they have some minimalistic backgrounds. Anyway so I made it and tried to save it as a picture but it saved as a .png which I found out recently means that it doesn’t have a background. So I had to screenshot it, save it as a picture, crop it, and post it like that.
McNulty’s was a little more difficult to make because I made it using GIMP. I opened the picture of the beer as a layer and added the text and then merged them and exported it. I thought of McNulty’s escapades in recent episodes and thought, hmm, he likes to get drunk. And since he is (questionably) Irish, I translated “Forget it, get drunk” into Irish and typed it in GIMP.
Daily Create 2: Math Expression in Pictures
My favorite mathematical expressions are y=mx+b and a2+b2=c2. So, since I saw that a couple people did y=mx+b, I decided to go with the other one. I couldn’t think of an A other than just a fancy A so that is what I did. My 2s are peace signs because I thought it was creative. My plus is the American Red Cross sign rather than a normal plus sign. My b is a flat sign, yes I know it is not a b but it looks like one. My equals sign is the equal logo because I thought it was funny. And my c is the sea because it’s punny. I copied and pasted them all from the internet into Microsoft Word, arranged them, screen shotted it, saved the screen shot as a picture, cropped it, and posted it to my blog.
Known:
I have also been posting quite a bit through Known. It is pretty easy to work with, I am just trying to figure out the finer points like where to put my tags and things of that nature. On Wednesday when I posted 6 different posts, I simply said look at my blog because it would have been overkill to post 6 different times, each time I posted a blog post. At least I would have been annoyed so I didn’t want to annoy everyone else.
Daily Create #3: A word of advice
This was a relatively easy daily create to do once I figured out what I wanted to talk about. Since I have been somewhat confused by my Advanced Economic Analysis class, I decided to give everyone some advice: don’t take upper level econ classes unless you are an econ major. And even then, maybe avoid advanced economic analysis. It is not fun and everyone is confused.
To make the sound clip I recorded it on SoundCloud and uploaded it to the TDC979 page very easily. I hope I was able to make at least a few people laugh.
I liked this episode a lot. I was super happy that Kima was finally awake, not so happy that Bunk was there pressing her and trying to get her to lie as soon as she woke up. It made me sad that Herc was so excited about getting promoted and then Carver gets promoted just because he was in the Deputy Ops’s pocket. I liked how later in the episode Daniels tells Carver basically that if you feed your subordinates corruption, that’s what they’ll turn out to be. I loved how D turned to help the cops at the beginning of the episode—I hated how his mom convinced him to stop help the cops to help family. I loved how McNulty handled the whole fiasco with the federal agents because I did not like how they were trying to make it all about the political corruption, not about the drug problems. Honestly, it annoyed me that Wee Bey was confessing to all of these crimes that he didn’t do, but really it showed the camaraderie that they have built. I enjoyed the scene with Poot running the low rises because I’m pretty sure the same exact thing happened when D just started running them.
Season 2, Episode 1: (To read more about my analysis of Episodes 1 and 2 look here)
Jimmy just starts his new job and he is already corrupt in it. That kind of annoys me because he is supposed to be the “good” cop. The one who does all of the right things, but I guess what the director is trying to prove is that there is no such thing as a good cop. I don’t like the dynamic between Prez and his father in law at all. His father-in-law thinks he knows what is best for Prez but really that’s not what Prez wants. The bird theme at the beginning was interesting and then when we finally figured out why, they didn’t show any more birds. I like how all of the people from the Barksdale case are still friends—shows the camaraderie that they were able to form on that case. Unfortunately, I like Stringer’s character a lot. He is so smart. Jimmy sticking it to Rawls has been the best part of this season so far.
Season 2, Episode 2:
Officer Russell didn’t want the dead girls to just be written off. She thought there was something else there and I’m glad she was willing to look into it. Jimmy and Bunk’s relationship is so funny to me, they love each other and they hate each other all at the same time. The whole issue with the stained glass at the church really just annoys the crap out of me. Why the heck is it that big of a deal whose window is where?? I like how the one cop in the prison does not put up with Avon’s crap—sorry, you don’t run this place too. It also didn’t surprise me that D was doing drugs—how else does he know how to put up with having to spend 20 years in prison because he didn’t want to sell his family out?
