Entry #1.5: Revenge of the Blog.

I figured I'd get the cliched title out of the way early... Anyways, I do still have a little to say on the subject of other blogs. Starting off with corporate blogs...

 

While surveying blogs to look for ideas and tips, I came across a number of blogs written by big name companies, such as Wal-mart, Google, and McDonald's. I tried to read a few different ones, and found most of them very dry and boring. I kind of expected that though. After all, these aren't the blogs of chefs, moms, or artists. These are the realms of business, where the dollar rules all. That doesn't necessarily these are bad blogs either. The ones I looked at were just too up-tight for my taste. Maybe if I ever start to play the stock market, I'll find an interest in them.

Since corporate blogs seem to be my least favorite source of reading, I guess I better balance this out with some positivity. Even if it's positivity about negativity. Benjamin "Yahtzee" Croshaw is one of my favorite " internet celebrities", famous for his weekly webseries, "Zero Punctuation", within which he nitpicks a new release video game for 5 minutes. His wit is razor-sharp, his views are cynical, and he's not afraid to call a big-name, high profile game like Call of Duty a variety of foul names for not doing anything original in terms of story, gameplay, mechanics, or anything else. When he isn't berating triple-A games for lack of imagination, he's putting other fun offerings up on his blog, including podcasts, videos, random musings, or news about his most recently developed games or novel. The humor might not be for everyone, but he makes me laugh everytime.

Storing Data in DNA

Finally, this has nothing to do with blogs, it's just awesome. A team of scientists in Europe were thinking about how efficiently DNA stores the blueprints of the human body, and got to wondering if it could do the same with digital data. The result? Well, the scientists created strands of custom DNA containing all 154 of Shakespere's sonnets, a portion of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, a photograph, a classic scientific paper,  and the formula used to convert the bytes of data into DNA in the first place. AND IT ALL WORKED PERFECTLY! The biggest concern at this point is the cost of producing the custom DNA, but with the potential storage rate estimated around 2.2 PETABYTES in a single gram, the perfection of this technology could revolutionize digital storage. (In case you're wondering, a petabyte is a thousand terabytes, which in turn are each equal to a thousand gigabytes. The largest, commercially available hard drive I've seen is only 3 terabytes, and those are already nearly impossible to fill up by a private citizen.) Just click on the link above to check it out if you're intrested.

  Even if you're not interested, I thank you for listening to me ramble, and I look forward to my next entry. I am working on something special, and I hope I'll have it ready soon. Adios! 

 

   

  

Entry #1. Bloggin' Along.

In my never-ending quest for new, semi-useful information, as well as a theme for this blog, I've decided to poke around a variety of existing blogs. I found blogs about food, shovels, video games, comics, carpet, toenail fungus, children, music, animals, and even poop. Quite literally, blogs about EVERYTHING! I ignored anything dealing with nasty bodily functions and dove in. My search quickly brought me to the Twelfth Annual Weblog Awards, a massive listing of supposedly superb blogs. "Ah," I thought, "here I shall hunt. Here I shall find ideas, or at least a few good reads." I started to scan the list (mostly at random)...

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/

   One of the first blogs to catch my eye was "Hyprbole and a Half." All it took was the name to draw my attention to this charming, silly little pile of exaggerations. And I'm glad it did. Reading through Allie's stories about blowing life out of proportion was a hoot, with many of them reminding me of my own life, though I don't believe I've ever let anything get THAT bad. The simple drawings are a cute way to illustrate the stories, and they do a good job of driving the point home. A big thumbs up!

http://yankee-kitchen-ninja.blogspot.com/

   Browsing down the list, the next name to pique my interest was "Adventures of the Kitchen Ninja." "Oh goodie! A cooking blog. New recipes, here I come!" This wouldn't be the first cooking blog I had seen, and I doubt it'll be the last. Cooking is always a fun, almost Zen-like experience for me, so anything promising new exercises in the culinary arts excites me. After being greeted by a tiny, grape-slaying, Lego ninja, I was a little disappointed by the recipes displayed on the front page. The opening selection includes items such as Black bean chocolate cookies , Lightened clam chowder, and Maple walnut crackers, and while there's nothing really wrong with any of those recipes, none of them really catch my attention either, sounding a little too much like "weird health" food to me. Also the layout is a little simple and boring (like I'm one to talk at this point), and I expected a little more whimsy after that opening picture, like maybe seeing the ninja climb up a stack of cookies. They are in the middle of  "Detox January", so it might just be bad timing on my end, and I'll check back in a while to see if the recipes look more appealing.

http://thebloggess.com/

One blog that was nominated several times, and even won the "Best Designed" award, was "The Bloggess". I was hesitant to check it ouit, since I thought it would be a "girly" blog, but a quick look at the design of the page couldn't hurt, right? "Hmm, let's see. Picture of girl with curlers and blow dryer, post about valentine's day, picture of scale... WAIT! WHAT'S THAT!!!"

"HOLY CHEESE! I RECOGNIZE THAT VISAGE OF PURE EVIL! THAT'S THE EYE OF SAURON" I had once again fallen prey to the preconception that girls and geeks don't mix. I immediatly had to read the post that spawned a picture of such an awesome cake. Then I had to read the rest of the page. Then I had to go to the bathroom before I peed my pants from laughing so much. I now have a number of new, and slightly evil, ideas for valentine's, I know what twitter thinks you do when you're bored, and I have new evidence that scales are evil. This blog is fun, and not afraid to let you know it. Be sure to give it a read.

   I only scratched the surface of the tip of the iceburg with these few blogs, but already I'm hooked. I know that by now there are nearly as many blogs on the internet as their are stars in the sky, and the content can focus on literally any subject the author feels passionate enough about to write about. I'll continue to look though many, hoping to find more inspiration.While I'm no closer to having a subject, I can rest easy knowing that as long as I put my heart into my writing, I'll never be able to write about the "wrong" thing.  Good Evening to all, and I'll see ya next time I post



 

Entry #0: What Am I?

Hello to one and all. My name is Charm Wilke, and this is already more than I've ever posted on the internet. I've been thinking about trying to make a blog for a while now, and now I'm in a class at Glendale Community College that requires it, so that's as good of an excuse as any. To be honest, I'm not really sure what to focus this blog on for the time being. Eventually, I'll post stories, music, video games, and the like that me and my friends create, but most of that is still being worked on.
  I may as well start off with a bit about myself. I live in Phoenix, AZ, and am currently attending GCC as noted above. I'm hoping to to get a degree in engineering, programming, or something else that can lead to a career in robotics. If that doesn't work, then I'll go for something medical, psychological, programming, or writing based. I'm pretty open as far as career choice goes, as long as I'm not frying potatoes for the rest of my life. My interests/ hobbies include music (both listening and making once I learn bass), video games ( NOT fighters or first person shooters; they get repetitive quick and are usually pretty lax on story lines), reading (into Dean Koontz right now), psychology, philosophy (gonna take classes on those two soon), and really anything else that sounds fun. I'm pretty easy going, willing to try or discuss nearly anything, and pretty hard to insult (this is not a challenge). Also, looking back over this post, I seem to love parentheses. Hmm... I might need to keep an eye on that.
  One last thing; if anyone reading this has any constructive criticism, please don't hesitate to tell me. Tell me what works. Tell me what doesn't work. Tell me I suck. I don't mind as long as you tell me WHY you feel that way. The only way I can make this thing better is by getting feedback from my viewers. Thank you all, and hopefully i'll have something of substance to post next time. Take care of yourselves.