It’sa M(ovi)E!

Today I went to go see the Mario movie and the only word I can say is satisfying. 

Despite the criticism of the cast, mainly Chris Pratt and Seth Rogen who play Mario and Donkey Kong, I was excited for the movie’s release for a while. For one, Jack Black is Bowser and that alone will sell me every time, but more importantly Illumination for a while now has been one of my favorite animation studios. 

As I took my seat late enough to skip the trailers but early enough to not miss a scene, every frame was like a nostalgic dream come true. From the soundtrack to the characters to the environment, it all felt so right. I wouldn’t say that the movie doesn’t have its imperfections, but without spoiling the attention to detail is pristine. Every little nod to the Mario and Nintendo lore made my inner child smile. 

The movie eventually reached its conclusion and the lights came on, but I didn’t want to leave. To walk through the rain in a light windbreaker soaked to the point that I can see my hairs through the jacket, expecting and hoping at least a solid seven out of ten, I was left with exceeding results. 

I was so astonished by the movie that I couldn’t wait a couple of years for a sequel, a week to watch it on a streaming site, or a couple days to see it in a larger theater. I needed to see the movie immediately. I played with the thought of not even leaving my seat and just sliding over another five dollars on the counter as I left at the end of the next showing. 

I walked out of the theater making calls and sending texts informing any and every one I could how amazing the movie was. The next moments felt like divine intervention, like everything was set in place before I even decided to go to the first screening. Walking into stadium view I realized the other five dollars that I left in the seat next to me was still there, almost as if it was calling me back to the next show. Who was I to deny a sign from God? While the initial pure reactions weren’t there the second time around, the movie was just as enjoyable. I rarely go back to see a movie a second time even if the cost for a ticket is cheaper than usual, but this was more than worth it. 

Chef Steve 3/7/23

    After a short trip home a couple weeks ago, my granddad gave me leftover sirloin beef. My grandparents love high quality foods and their choice of butcher shops reflect that. When he gave me the package his only word of advice was to “put it on a good bun”. Taking this to heart, I refused to buy buns from community market or dollar general because the meat deserved better. Instead, I took the longest but perhaps the most unnecessary route I could have. I ordered two quarter pounders and two regular hamburgers from McDonald’s using their app to save money. From there, I took the patties off the quarter pounders and used the buns for the sirloin beef. I was kind of afraid to cook it myself just because I didn’t want to mess up the meat, but it’s great quality did more work than me; much like most of the food I’ve made this year. As I made four separate balls of beef to throw on the skillet, I recognized they were fairly large. I thought nothing of it, thinking they’d shrink by the time they were done cooking. Instead, they refused to get smaller, making each patty look like a mondo burger. We had no cheese, lettuce, ketchup or any other condiments for the matter. Of course this wasn’t a discovery I made until after all the burgers were finished, but there was no way I wasn’t going to eat at least one burger while they were fresh. I tried to take a picture beforehand because I thought it looked like a Krabby patty, but I couldn’t resist. The first bite was so good I turned it the other way, took a quick picture, and went to town. A part of me wishes I checked the refrigerator beforehand so I could have made a proper burger, but I wasn’t too mad at it. Leaving the burger plain allowed me to taste the fine quality of the sirloin, something that wouldn’t have been as noticeable if I would have given it all the toppings I normally like on burgers. As I continue to try and cook new foods I’m learning it’s way easier than I make it. The only thing that makes cooking difficult is the preparation after getting all the ingredients. Nonetheless, cooking yourself seems to add a little flavor to meals; take out better count their days! 

“Learn Me Something” First Episode 3/1/23

This semester I have been taking a podcasting class. In this class we have to create our own show and release episodes weekly. Before our first week I knew I wanted to use this opportunity to interview people in my life that I would like to know more about and ask questions I have always had. As we began to establish our podcasts on whatever domain we choose, I decided to title my show “Learn Me Something”. The point of it is to share other interests and hobbies outside of people’s main occupation and their goals moving forward. 

For my first episode I decided to interview my roommate Aidan. Going into it I felt that I knew Aidan very well as we have a lot of conversations and have been living together for this year. However, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Even from the five years I’ve known him there was so much I didn’t know about Aidan’s early life. I found it extremely fascinating to learn about all the things that made him the person he is today. Along with learning about his life I was able to learn a lot about the field he wants to work in. We had a decently long conversation about politics and the roles within it. For the most part it was all new to me because I don’t even watch or read the news let alone give any of my time to keep up on politics. 

After our 30 minute banter, I was prepared to begin editing and fine tuning the episode when disaster struck. Apparently the entire time we were talking, the mic we were using was muted, leaving me with 30 minutes of silence. Usually, inconveniences like these would send me into a blind rage, but in this situation I had a sigh of relief because I was video recording the podcast on my phone as well. The game plan from here was simple; export the video to an mp3 then submit the audio files. In my mind this was going to be a breeze, but this was not the case. I went through the most grueling process of splitting up the video into parts because the file size was too large which took hours to complete. Frustrated and fed up, I decided not to do anything of the audio editing I intended to do due to the amount of time it took just to turn the video into separate audio files. By that time I just wanted my assignment turned in to avoid falling behind. 

BSU Black Wall Street Ball 2/24/23

 Last weekend I was blessed with an opportunity to perform at the BSU Black Wall Street ball here on campus. An amazing experience that has pushed me another step forward in my career. 

This chance to perform in front of fellow classmates and faculty members was offered to me about a month prior to the event. Nichal, a friend of mine, who also is one of my top Spotify listeners, reached out to me asking if I’d like to perform. One thing I am very adamant about is accepting any and every opportunity to perform because it’s something that brings me joy and that I consider as practice as I continue to move forward. I was already excited when I was told that I’d also be getting paid. With this being only my second time getting paid to perform my excitement and anticipation kicked into high gear. 

The ball was the last event of the month-long Kubma Fest held every year on campus. Before this event was a talent show. I decided to sign up for this as well to get myself ready for the real performance and to promote the ball. The issue was though, I felt that I did terrible at the talent show. With this being my first time performing since the summer I became fatigued very quickly and barely made it out of my set. This left me frustrated and a little discouraged. However, shortcomings do nothing but motivate me to do better next time. It sent me a message that I need to be more mindful of my physical health and conditioning as I continue to get older. No longer am I a teenager that can just run on stage with a whole lot of energy without losing much breath, not saying I’m old or anything, but I’m definitely getting older and completely out of shape. Outside of getting my set list together, that week of preparation involved a lot of breathing exercises and taking pills to release gas that had been trapped in my stomach. I was so relieved the morning of the ball to not feel any bloating and was prepared for a fun night. 

Even though this was a dress up event I expressed that this would be an issue for me when I came to pants. As it pertains to performing I’m a very active person that enjoys dynamic movement. With that in mind I pleaded to wear jogging pants so I wouldn’t rip the only black dress pants that I have. When I arrived at the bear cave in my half decent attire, I ran a little mic check and helped in whatever way I could to make sure everything was set for the night. Everyone that attended were dressed to impress to the point where it almost felt like prom again. Every seat wasn’t filled, but the people who were there made the most of it, creating a fun and free experience. Instead of performing the four songs that we had planned all at once we spread it out giving me time to catch my breath and others time to be social and eat as well. By the end of the night everyone was dancing, doing hustles together, and even a short lived dougie and stanky leg contest.  

Cask Room Debates 2/17/23

 Another Wednesday, another night in the cask room. Today my roommate and I decided to meet up with some friends at the cask room. They were already there and I was very reluctant to because my money was starting to run a little low. However, just because I couldn’t drink didn’t mean I couldn’t have a good time with good people. 

When we got there our friends Luke and Scott were there with some familiar faces and some that I didn’t recognize. Usually, when I meet people at a bar I may introduce myself, but won’t say much after. I do this because typically the music and other voices are so loud you can’t necessarily hear very well to have a conversation. Since this was our own little hole in the wall though, the only noise was us. This gave us all a chance to sit and talk together and learn about one another. 

It didn’t take long for everyone to feel comfortable around one another with our glue being a mixture of  alcohol, anime, and sports. Even though I like anime, that night I learned the difference between people who enjoy anime such as myself and people who watch anime. When I say people who watch anime, I mean beyond your popular shows such as Dragon ball, Naruto, attack on titan etc. I started to recognize that they were in a different league when my roommate and another guy were sharing lists of anime they’d watched over the years. These lists had anywhere between 50-100+ shows, most being ones I never heard about. The conversation was right up the bartenders alley so she joined in with her own recommendations. At this point it seemed like they were speaking a different language, but hearing they’re synopsis on certain shows was interesting enough for me to want to check out a good amount of them when I had time. 

As the drinks went down more and more basketball talk came up. One thing I’ve noticed is that when the NBA is mentioned in a group conversation, there will always be debates. Who is better than who, what team will make the finals, who is “trash”, and the most common of them all, the GOAT (greatest of all time) debate. Being in Ohio, I am well aware in every GOAT debate LeBron is going to be everyone’s choice. I feel as if it’s a sense of nationality, the same way my roommate gives the title to Michael Jordan because he’s from Chicago. Without this same privilege I still treat Kobe the same way. The debate dragged on for a while but no matter what was said I still believe no one could put the ball in the basket as well as Kobe Bean Bryant. 

The Sleepy Student

Some days are easier than others. Throughout my academic career, sleep has trumped school work as well as my attentiveness in class. Even though I have been working harder to fix it, this is still a hefty trend of mine. This year it has been a lot easier to suck it up and go to class more often, but some days this just isn’t the case. Every now and again due to long nights, outside stress, fatigue, or a slew of other reasons keep me in bed for a large portion of the day missing most of my classes. Maybe I should start following up my initial waking with breakfast. 

PRSSA SM Workshop Recap

I’ll be honest I wasn’t stoked to go to the social media workshop. I expected us to stay in the ballroom all day listening to people give boring speeches about how much they accomplished and involuntarily doing activities here and there. What I found instead was a day full of amazing insight into the social media industry from a point of view I had never seen before. After Steven Miller spoke, which I enjoyed due to his love for his job and many occurrences of nerdgasms during his career, I went to the airstream session with Carey and Ashley, then to Emily Mowry’s session on social media audits, and finished with Sarah Fitch. What I really appreciated from all of these keynote speakers, outside of the information they shared, was their willingness to give us opportunities to ask questions. They all did really well on making the moment feel intimate and more like a conversation than just speaking at an event. Overall, the day turned out to be so much better than I expected. I learned a lot and was able to connect with some really cool people. 

To view my live tweets at the event click here: https://twitter.com/ohheykillacad