Gummy Bears are My Type

It's true.

Dashing and daring, courageous and caring, yes it's gummy bears. The idea came to me as I was eating gummy bears while watching "the Lego Movie" in theaters... again. I love gummy bears unashamedly, they're colorful delicious little science projects that have remained pretty constant over the course of my life. Around my room I have several little toys and trinkets including, but not limited to, the batarangs, Nintendo systems and Legos that I featured in the photo above. A running joke between me and my family is that "I'm an adult," but only by legal definition. The loveable Irish comedian, Dylan Moran, said it best: 

"You’re not really an adult at all. You’re just a tall child holding a beer, having a conversation you don’t understand.”

Gummy bears are bad for me, I'm old enough and smart enough to know this to be fact. I just really don't care.

             

Peer Review: I'm Judging You

 Will Blog for Work
1. What is one thing my peer does well in his/her visualization blog?
I really like the monochromatic color scheme a lot, it looks very clean.
2. What is one thing my peer needs to work on with his/her visualization blog?
The organization and layout of the blog.
3. What I like most in this blog? (visual display, text description, etc)
 I really like the name, it's clever.
4. What I dislike most in this blog? (visual display, text description, etc) 
 Nothing really stands out and the layout is a bit confusing.
KP 
1. What is one thing my peer does well in his/her visualization blog?
 It's very well organized, the layout is very easy to follow.
2. What is one thing my peer needs to work on with his/her visualization blog?
 It needs a bit more personality, it doesn't seem like there's a person behind this blog.
3. What I like most in this blog? (visual display, text description, etc)
 The way all of the work is displayed.
4. What I dislike most in this blog? (visual display, text description, etc)
It's a bit boring, nothing really draws me in or makes me want to continue reading. 
Wickham Class Projects
1. What is one thing my peer does well in his/her visualization blog?
All of the work is very intriguing and presented well.
2. What is one thing my peer needs to work on with his/her visualization blog?
 The blog theme could be a little more interesting and a bit less minimalistic.
3. What I like most in this blog? (visual display, text description, etc)
 All of the pictures are fantastic, they make the blog very interesting.
4. What I dislike most in this blog? (visual display, text description, etc)
It needs a bit more personalization, other than that it's great.

Create Your Own Comic: Don't Panic.

Creating a comic is harder than it looks. I am a big fan of shows like The Regular Show with a whimsical storyline that people can also relate to. I'm also a fan of Tim Burton with his more Gothic and strange drawings. "Don't Panic" was heavily inspired by those two styles. My own experiences and personality went into the idea as well. Anne is a bit of a failure by design. She likes to blame her brain for tripping her up, she considers getting work done at the last minute to be her superpower and the only creature on earth she feels comfortable with is her dog. A lot of people seem to be able to relate to "loser" qualities like that.

This is the tale of tragedy and woe of a young girl trying to function on her own accord in the real world yet finds herself being pulled into her own mind on a regular basis to do vicious battle with her own brain. Anne is another technical grown-up completely unable to function in the grown-up world. Her best friend is a dog and her archenemy and god-like hero both only exist inside her head, so it’s safe to say she’s got everything under control.

Anne has a lot on her plate. She has to deal with school, her job, family and the evil Brain who keeps trying to foil her attempts at happiness. Every task minuscule task in her life is enhanced into a great battle between herself and Brain. Easy homework assignments, semi-important phone calls and running boring errands become life or death situations and that makes everyday life pretty hard. At the moment Anne is just trying to graduate university with passing marks, but that is easier said than done with the embodiment of evil living in your head. Sometimes she wins, sometimes she loses and sometimes she has to be bailed out by her wildly successful alter ego, Future Anne. In the end everything is supposed to work out, Anne is just worried that it won’t for her.

In essence it is a never-ending story. How are we supposed to win when we are our own worst enemies? When the rest of the world seems to have everything sorted out already it can be hard to see your place, especially when you don’t want to settle for just any life. Anne doesn’t want fame or fortune, although it might be nice, she just wants to be happy. Life is constantly reminding her that finding happiness is easier said than done.

Cast:

Anne- The law states that she’s technically an adult, so why hasn’t that magic transformation happened yet? Anne is unhappy most of the time and trying to stave off an anxiety attack all of the time. Perpetually tired and misunderstood she is trying to figure out what is going on in a world where everyone seems to already know what he or she is supposed to be doing. On top of her real life responsibilities she is forced to battle against her own mind as it tries to thwart her every attempt at being a moderately successful and content human being. Armed with nothing but a dog, an alter ego and uncontrollable imagination Anne is determined to essentially stop herself from destroying herself.

Brain- “Didn’t you forget to do something? I’m pretty sure you forgot to do something? I don’t care that it’s three a.m. you seem a bit too comfortable with the fact that you definitely forgot something very important and should be panicking about it!” Meet Brain, or more specifically Anne’s Brain. It's a bit of a jerk. Brain’s only purpose in life seems to be to make Anne miserable. By sparking bouts of severe self-loathing, forgetfulness and Anne’s kryptonite, the anxiety attack, Brain tries to force Anne into mediocrity. Brain is, well, a floating orb of pure energy who follows Anne around and pops up at the most inopportune times distracting Anne with irrelevant thoughts and funny Internet videos. Worst of all Brain is a part of Anne so there’s no escape.

Future Anne- Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it’s Future Anne! Anne’s perfect alter ego who works out every morning, gets everything done on time and has a ton of self-confidence. When everything gets out of hand Future Anne is there to save the day. While constantly annoyed at Anne’s inability to do anything right Future Anne has no objections to cleaning up her messes and helping her find the ability to function like the grown woman she really is. Future Anne is everything Anne hopes to someday be, and can be when she’s able to get her life sorted out.

Geoffrey- At the end of it all Anne cannot count on anyone like she can count on her dog, most of the time. Every superhero needs a sidekick and Anne has Geoffrey, the fluffy dog-like creature who sleeps at the end of her bed. Geoffrey loves sugar cookies and going for rides in the car almost as he loves his owner. Everyone needs a shoulder to cry on and Anne has Geoffrey. Though not everyone can understand him, Geoffrey speaks to Anne a lot and is basically her fuzzy little anchor in her ongoing battles against Brain and life itself. For Anne people aren’t all that great, dogs are much better.

Photography Changes Everything, Peter Parker

It's nice to be reminded that cameras can serve a much greater purpose than just taking selfies. In the essay "Photography Changes What We Know About Spiders" Jonathan A. Coddington discusses how the introduction of photography has progressed arachnology. Prior to the introduction of cameras scientists could only observe the spiders themselves and attempt to sketch out their webs. Thanks to photography and Bill Eberhard's grandma studying the webs of various spiders is shockingly simple. For something as seemingly simple as sprinkling some cornstarch and snapping a picture the development exponentially furthered what is known about spider webs, from how they are made to how they work. If just the introduction of cameras did so much for arachnology how much has it done and how much can it do for other sciences? It's unfathomable how much has been gained with the ability to take a picture. We can now more easily and accurately study everything from the human body to the universe, not only that but we can document and share our findings like never before.

Visual Analysis: Paint by Numbers

 The most challenging part of this project was choosing the art. In the end Pollock's "Number 5" received the highest score of the pieces I chose. The Degas I chose tied with two other pieces for the lowest score, making me question the scale. The latest piece in my collection was more of a sketch done by Tim Burton. I wanted to ad variety to my list and ended up with works created almost one-hundred years apart. A lot of personal preference went into this project. I chose only pieces that I was very familiar with by artists I favor. Seeing the final product and how these works of art that have been featured in museums and admired stacked up against each other was frankly bizarre. I began thinking about all of the other works out there and what it would look like if museums hung charts instead of paintings.

Triptych Photography: Get Stuffed.

It started when I shoved a bunny my grandmother gave me into a piece of an old Halloween costume. My search for inspiration had carried me to my closet and deep into a box full of toys and trinkets left over from a simpler time. I dug around and messed with a few stuffed cats before inspiration struck me like a mack truck. In a world where children play with dolls dressed up like zombie hookers and video games a bit more violent that a MMA fight the toys of my childhood seem like a far cry from the new norm. So I altered them a bit to fit in with today's toy standards.

Bart

Trix

Wrinkles

I admittedly did not do a lot of planning. It seemed the more I thought about it the harder it became to come up with an idea, so I took the messy route. After dressing a bunny up in fishnet the other images just came to me. Almost as if it was obvious I had planned on defiling my stuffed animals that day. The background of each picture is wood paneling from one of the rooms in my house. Wood paneling is always seen as being kind of cheap and trashy, it seemed to fit with the pictures. I had highly underestimated how difficult this project was going to be. It is a simple enough concept to understand, but it's a bit more difficult to picture.