#they’re decent quality for ones i printed at home :3

[third-king-of-salmonids]

THEYRE REALLY GOING FOR THAT END OF SEASON BONUS DOWN IN MARKETING, NOW I GOTTA FIND PLACES TO STICK THESE >:V

[tyronebeerbohm]

He and every other competitor who reached the semifinals advance to the state tournament, which begins May 18 in Lexington.

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[tashgoose]

Howl and Haku watercolour prints on my etsy store @ tashcrow

While I liked the paper quality of the old prints of these guys I didn't really like the actual print, (red hue and a little blurry) so I've made my own!

I've been getting into making art prints with my own printer with some decent results. I'm using a printable watercolour paper by bockingford so it looks and feels more like the original painting! Since these are home prints and aren't archival, they're a bit cheaper than the old ones at £5 for a4 and £3 for a5

[hag-lad]

Digging Deeper

Thank you to my radiant wonderful friend @alienfuckeronmain for sending me EXACTLY the type of self indulgent wind-down activity I wanted on this otherwise depressing weekend! If anyone else wants to answer FORTY-NINE QUESTIONS about themselves, I’m super nosy and will read it all! @fight-the-seether @ptolemyofchaos @butchwizard @metalbutch @nyndelion @comrade-ziltoid @leatherdear @kristalknobb Enjoy, friends!

1. Do you prefer writing with a black pen or blue pen? I prefer black, but I always feel like I write neater in blue??

2. Would you prefer to live in the country or city? The city, but only if it has breathable air, green infrastructure, and decent public transit. So like... definitely no city in America lmao

3. If you could learn a new skill what would it be? The ability to quickly become fluent in another language! I’ve been struggling with Spanish for literal YEARS and it’s honestly pathetic. My brain is so stuck on English.

4. Do you drink your tea/coffee with sugar? Look pal. If I wanna drink sugar, I’m gonna have a soda, not herb water or bean juice.

5. What was your favorite book as a child? I was OBSESSED with The Wish List, by Eoin Colfer (of Artemis Fowl fame). I remember being so fascinated by how dark it was?? It’s an afterlife adventure, where the main character has to escape purgatory by atoning for her crimes of robbery and fraud and whatever. I had a crush on her, so basically this book made me want to pursue a life of crime, even though it explicitly condemns crime and depicts Hell as a very real and horrible place. I was in like fourth grade and was super morbidly curious about Hell and the possibility of going there! Lol

6. Do you prefer baths or showers? Baths... but only when I’m not actually dirty going in. A bath is leisure, not hygiene.

7. If you could be a mythical creature, which one would you be? 100% fae! I would build my dwelling within a sidhe mound, steal shiny things in the middle of the night, make bastardly little contracts for no reason, and cause harmless mayhem and mischief because mortals really are fools (go off, robin goodfellow!) Also I love mushroom circles and dancing in the moonlight.

8. Paper or electronic books? Paper all the way! I read much more content electronically, but it’s usually in the short story or article format. Books are much better in print, I think.

9. What is your favorite item of clothing? Probably my rust-brown overalls.

10. Do you like your name or would you like to change it? I’ve always hated my name but no alternative has ever stuck, unfortunately. My name is Amy, and I don’t think it fits at all. If I knew I’d never have to correct anyone on it, I’d probably just change it to Amelia?

11. Who is a mentor to you? My little brother! He’s this genius musician, and he has taught me so much about song structure, polyrhythms, guitar technique, production tricks, all kinds of trivia that really deepen my appreciation for music and the LABOR that goes into it.

12. Would you like to be famous and if so, what for? No, never, not for anything. I cherish my anonimity so much, I don’t even put searchable tags on this blog cuz I get an adrenaline spike from anxiety if too many people interact with me. I also just think fame is a fucking hideous construct. I don’t think it’s even slightly cool or desirable.

13. Are you a restless sleeper? No, I’m a fucking log. I can easily sleep for 12 hours straight. Thanks, depression!

14. Do you consider yourself a romantic person? No, actually. I’m very much in love, and it brings me lots of joy to do nice things with and for my partner! But romance feels very difficult for me to connect with. I’m super domestic, like, I love the idea of marriage but not necessarily a wedding, or a moonstruck romance or whatever. Those dramatic gestures feel very awkward for me.

15. Which element best represents you? EARTH. Specifically, like... dirt, or soil.

16. Who do you want to be closer to? I want to be geographically closer to my family. We’re thick as thieves, but we all live like 50 miles apart from each other. I miss my brothers and my parents so much, I feel so incomplete and depressed without them to hang out with, especially since quarantine.

17. Do you miss someone at the moment? See above! Lol

18. Tell us about an early childhood memory. When my little brother was a baby, he had this grey car seat with a folding mechanism which held his legs in place. It made a very satisfying clicking sound when the mechanism moved, AND when it was fully unfolded, it looked a lot like a Klingon battle cruiser. (Or so my five year old brain thought.) So! My older brother and I would take this seat out of the car CONSTANTLY so that we could unfold it and “sing” the Klingon theme music from Star Trek: The Motion Picture while we scooched our car seat battle cruiser across the living room floor, pretending to shoot phasers into the TV or the dining table or whatever else got in our way.

19. What is the strangest thing you have eaten? Gifilte fish, maybe?

20. What are you most thankful for? My family, including my wonderful partner and all the cats in our lives!

21. Do you like spicy food? Yes! But my tolerance for extreme spice decreases every year, unfortunately. So I can’t handle as much heat as I used to, but I do enjoy a good kick.

22. Have you ever met someone famous? Lmaooo I made the regretful decision to PAY FOR a meet&greet with Fall Out Boy in like 2006, which was so fucking awkward and painful, I vowed to never approach that level of lame again.

23. Do you keep a diary or a journal? TONS! I’m an obsessive record keeper. Some years I journal more than others, and I’ve found that it is super difficult to keep up with it while working full time. But it’s absolutely one of my favorite hobbies.

24. Do you prefer to use a pen or pencil? Pen for writing. Pencil for drawing, and math.

25. What is your star sign? Virgo sun, Aquarius moon, Scorpio rising 🙃

26. Do you like your cereal soggy or crunchy? Crunchy! A shallow bath in that milk is key.

27. What would you want your legacy to be? My artwork. I go through these aesthetic phases every year that I become super obsessed with/ focused on, and I’ve always meant to catalogue them in annual art journals, but I’ve NEVER FINISHED ONE! They always get pushed aside by the need to work, and I hate that so much. If I could just take a year off work and backfill all of my missed concepts into completed books, I would be so happy. But I literally have NO WAY to pay for that, absolutely none. I fucking hate capitalism.

28. Do you like reading, what was the last book you read? I love to read, but finishing a whole book has been A STRUGGLE lately! Right now I’m chipping away at Tending Brigid’s Flame, which is a quaint lil devotional for the Celtic fire goddess. Very new agey, like cheesy Wiccan vibes. I love that shit!

29. How do you show someone you love them? Quality time!

30. Do you like ice in your drinks? Only if I have a straw. Ice touching my teeth kinda makes me wince.

31. What are you afraid of? Incompetance, doing a bad job, letting someone down, taking up too much space, being a nussiance, etc

32. What is your favourite scent? Incense! Especially cinnamon, dragon’s blood, and amber.

33. Do you address older people by their name or surname? I always call people, regardless of age, by the name they ask me to use. Sometimes it’s a surname or title, usually it’s a first name. I’ll ask their preference if I’m unsure. But I definitely don’t default toward a surname, that’s weird.

34. If money was not a factor, how would you live your life? COMPLETELY DIFFERENTLY!!!!!! The need for money rules literally every single hour of my entire life, and I hate it so much. I’m naturally nocturnal, but my job requires me to get up super early and sit in a car for 11 hours a day. I wake up at 5am, come home front work at 5pm, spend an hour or two trying to unwind, then go to bed and do it all over again. I hate my life! Really! I never see the stars, I never exercise, I am completely exhausted and burnt out all the time, and I barely get any quality time with my partner. If money were no object, I would sleep til noon or 1, make art and hike all day, ride my bike and stargaze all night, stay up til 4am reading and playing with my cats, and sleep like a baby. My partner and I would cook dinner for each other and watch Star Trek and collaborate on art projects and I would be so happy.

35. Do you prefer swimming in pools or the ocean? Here’s my hierarchy: Private pool > ocean > public pool

36. What would you do if you found £50 on the ground? I’d look around to see if anyone obviously dropped it and try to give it back. If I couldn’t find anyone, I’d exchange it for dollars and deposit that shit into my account!

37. Have you ever seen a shooting star? Of course!! Hundreds!

38. What is the one thing you would want to teach your children? America is evil and needs to be destroyed.

39. If you had to have a tattoo, what would it be and where would you get it? Lmao this is so cute. If you HAD TO HAVE a tattoo! I really wanna finish my damn sleeves, they’re literally 9 years in the making and barely half finished. But I’d also love more art on my legs! I DESPERATELY want Ziltoid in a lacy valentine heart on my thigh.

40. What can you hear now? Our fish tank water bubbling and my fan on full blast.

41. Where do you feel the safest? Home alone, doors locked, windows covered, lights low. I absolutely LOVE to not be seen or perceived in any way.

42. What is the one thing you want to overcome/conquer? My fear of discomfort

43. If you could time travel to another era, which one would you choose? I feel like I’d want to be a teen in the 80’s and an adult in the 90’s. Does time travel work that way?

44. What is your most used emoji? 😭 or 😎

45. Describe yourself using one word. Defeated

46. What do you regret the most? Convincing myself that math was too hard or boring (or something?) when I was in middle school. I feel like I’m actually a pretty intelligent person who could’ve totally overcome that difficulty and gone on to understand all kinds of patterns and concepts which have eluded me to this day! It’s so frustrating to try and fight that formative self-concept, which now comes naturally but ultimately sabotages me. 💀

47. Last movie you saw? I made my partner watch Troop Beverly Hills, one of my childhood faves. It’s so fun! I love chick flicks so much.

48. Last tv show you watched? Deep Space Nine. Getting through the first season has been harder than expected. It’s actually my favorite Star Trek show?? (Orrrr maybe that’s TNG, ahh! It’s so hard to choose!) But season one is so baffling and awful! Why is there so much space capitalism??! And racism? And war? And drinking alcoholic beverages? #notmystartrek

49. Invent a word and its meaning. I used to call a single strand of curly hair a “curly quink” when I was a child. Therefore, a “quink” is a section of hair, usually a particularly cute or iconic one.

[freewheelshippin]

30 utapri questions!

Thanks @dekiaibadchoices​ for the tag, this was an awesome way to wind down after a ton of nonstop busy busy busy!!! (and thanks for tagging this blog vs the general utapri one so i can REALLY gush LOL) Here’s the OG meme! 

1. Your best boy?

BANANAMAN RAN WHO ELSE  

2. Your least favorite boy?

“least favorite” implies dislike which...not true! truthfully it’s much of HEAVENS by nature of ‘I haven’t spent as much time getting to know these characters so I don’t really know who they are.’ (though I already know I love to go for drinks and snacks with Van hehe) i do like all of HEAVENS quite a bit from what i’ve seen so far but that affection has not had time to ripen! 

3. A character that you never thought you would love as much as you do now?

mnmnj ranran tbh 

4. A character you can relate to in any way?

I can’t answer everything with Ranmaru but like. His ambition, straightforwardness, and how the soul and spirit of music motivate him to move forward beyond a tough past are things I same hat so much ;; But HONESTLY I also relate a lot to Masa and Tokiya, especially in their moments of self-doubt and dramatic commitment to to their art? 

5. A character that you think deserves more love?

Oh, Cecil, without a doubt. He’s such a resilient, committed, and open-hearted cutie and gets really shafted by canon tbh. Which makes it harder for everyone to see what a great boy this sweetie is! But I appreciate how Shining Live has given him some room to have really cute and standout moments so everyone can love him more but okay like, give me more Ceci and Ran palling around I love him most when they’re up to shenanigans 

6. A character you would want as your partner?

well we’re posting this fuckin here so you all fuckin know (im very embarrass rn i can barely say it lmao) 

(for the record i would also very much like to be friends with reiji and syo, they are cool people i think i’d get along with! and i know myself, if i knew otoya or masato IRL i’d just be like ‘well. that’s my son now’ and basically appoint myself their tough big sis-type-friend lookin out for them lol) 

7. A character you would want as your mentor/senpai?

I would swallow a pinecone before I called him ‘onii-san’ but teach me how to network kotobuki-senpai 

(No, like, forreal, I suck so, so bad at a ton of stuff Reiji is aces at, and I respect the hell out of his *waves* general everything and skilll navigating the industry. Since I’m a goofy, jokey, overenthusiastic teacher for work a lot it’d be nice to be on the receiving end of all that energy! and be a fucking decent kouhai that isn’t so horribly unappreciative of all his hard work and good cheer ) 

8. Your favorite ship?

shut your whore mouth i dont have the marbles to write it out 

(tbh it’s also Haru/Tomo, I just feel so much more romantic chemistry between those two than Haru and any of the boys u___u  Friends’ selfship stuff goes without saying, haha, and ngl I’m kind of About a Ren/Van rivalry hatemance? can i call it a kismesis thing? it’s a kismesis thing.) 

(actually no I think I’m just a member of the “Ren Fucks and sometimes it’s Hatesex” club) 

9. A character that you want to cosplay/have already cosplayed?

I had plans to cosplay Ranmaru a couple months ago bc it’s really not much of a stretch for my wardrobe, haha, but I dunno about that anymore! Part of it was wanting the Euphoria of looking like a tough, twunky, princely anime character but tbqh I’m already that every day of my life so 

I suppose if you were to pull my leg I’d go for cosplaying Van, mostly because I wanna try that mullet on for myself. 

10. Favorite side character?

TOMO!! LOVE U BITCH WHEN WILL I HEAR U SINGGGGGG 

11. Your favorite solo song?

god this is horrible how can I decide??? so many good ones??? I think it’s a draw between Top Star Revolution, No. 1, Brand New Melody, Wild Soul, Seien Brave Heart, and Junketsu Nara Ai ~Aspiration~ ??? 

12. Your favorite duet song?

HMMMMM again too many good ones. Three-way tie between Haru Hana, NorthWind and SunShine, and Original Resonance! 

13. Your favorite trio song?

Ahhh Dream More than Love is really nostalgic bc it’s the first Utapri song I really loved, but i gotta be real. It’s just Egoistic. There’s just no getting better than Egoistic 

14. Your favorite group song?

mmmm i’m be basic. Poison Kiss 

15. Your least favorite song?

I love Ai and Shouta Aoi’s incredible voice but......I’m really not a fan of super slow, overly-saccharine songs. u__u so A.I. really, really doesn’t land with me, much less so than easygoing (like Knocking on the Mind) or somber (like Winter Blossom) songs. 

16. Your favorite singer?

ranran...it’s always ranran...

(I do also adore Natsuki’s and Camus’s voices! I tend to like deeper, richer vocal qualities, but you just can’t beat Ranmaru’s subtle growls and high-energy rock!!!! <3) 

17. Your favorite group/trio/duo?

god what combo of these idiots DONT i love? I could watch Reiji prank and tease Ranmaru all fuckin day, and I also really like it when Ran’s at his most ‘tuff big bro-y’ with, like, Ai, Otoya, and Cecil!!! but honestly I do like how the Ran/Masa/Ren trio isn’t so straightforward and is more or less held together by a thin string of professionalism, there’s something i appreciate about not forcing ppl to just bury the hatchet and be Perfect Friends but you all can still care about each other? (Ranmaru needs to be nicer to them still but...) 

i need to suggest one that isn’t ranmaru centric fjdsioafjsa i fuckin love Soccer Buds (otosyo) and I loooooove it when Otoya and Cecil are good to each other!!! 

18. Your favorite member of Starish?

they’re all my favorite but if you REALLY had to make me pick.....Masato, probably, haha. I just...if you take yourself too seriously and care so much about everything but still know how to be Nasty how can I not love you??? 

19. Your favorite member of Quartet Night?

what do you fuckin think, hoss 

20. Your favorite member of Heavens?

I mentioned earlier I don’t really know Heavens well, so ofc this is all liable to change! But off the bat I love what a conniving yet wholesome bastard Eiichi is and Van is just the kinda guy I would rib and pal around with IRL!! 

21. Your favorite seiyuu/voice actor?

Ahhh that’s tough! I love all these goofbags, and Tattsun really is just so cool and makes music I’m pretty about. But I think I gotta give it to Suwabe, his performances are always so him but still pretty varied, and how can you not adore a man who loves his chihuahuas that much??? 

(if i’m being 100% honest Tattsun lost points bc he voices my absolute least favorite character in granblue ffjsfjisda) 

22. Favorite Drama CD?

HMMMMMMM see as a certified Giant Tool for Everything Mecha and silly and extra, I enjoyed the hell out of Polaris, but it really suffers from a lack of Ranmaru in my humble fuckin opinion lmao. So even though I’m not one for pirate stuff most of the time, I gotta give it to Pirates of the Frontier!! I really loved Ranmaru and Otoya’s dynamic in that one, and Camus was juuuuust the right amount of shitheel, too. 

I haven’t heard the whole thing but that thing from Egoistic where Natsuki squeezes Ranmaru to death and Eiichi’s just like ‘WUAHAHAHAHAH’ is also the mcfuckin best. 

23. Your favorite shining live card?

CAN’T PICK 

HOW COULD I POSSIBLY PICK?????????? LIKE??? I love the fucking dumb, dumb, dumb ostentatiousness of Evil Villains, I LOVE a good heel, and I also worked so so hard to t1 that event and had a lot of fun doing it!! But also, I just love his big smile and all the energy and mixed prints from Fortune and Prosperity, and it was literally the first time I ever got the exact card I was rolling for in a gacha on the last pull I had left!! (He also came home during a time I was really going through some shit, and ngl it rescued me a little bit!) but AHHHH Soulful Bass also came out right around my birthday, I love all the textures in the outfit and it’s generally the most My Aesthetique thing Utapri has ever released!!! And god, I just love it when he’s so confident and in his element like this, it sets me on FIRE to see him light up the stage wurghjgfj ;___; They all make me just want to HUG SO MUCH ARGGHHHHH 

24. Your favorite song beatmap?

Ahhh I think Shining Live really has great beatmaps across the board so that’s a tough pick! Almost all of them are super fun in their own way, but I think I gotta hand it to Wild Soul, Top Star Revolution, and Innocent Wind! 

25. Your least favorite song beatmap?

A.I. u__u Sorry, Ai...it’s just not fun for me.

26. Black Deja Vu or White Gravity?

Actually I’m really glad for this question bc I’ve been so busy lately I hadn’t given myself the time to really check them out! checking ......... 

and yep. Black Deja Vu. (I mean...Ranmaru is on it, haha.) But I’m so about this. Love this heavier sound and all these harmonies, this is so juicy. (White Gravity also absolutely kicks ass though!! I’m really liking that voice group, it’s making especially good use of those higher registers!) 

27. Utapri merch that you own/want?

Honestly I don’t have much u__u Not a lot of Utapri merch is my thing...you know? I’m mostly shopping for Ran merch if I’m getting any, but I’m very picky about how he gets drawn? Keeping his toughness and a particular clothing style about him is so essential, haha, and barely anything hits that sweet spot for me. But I will say I adored the whole ‘My Favorite Things’ series, and if I had the budget and space atm I’d love to get some of the Ran goodies from that line! 

28. How did you get into Utapri?

I first heard about it through some acquaintances from cosplay before Quartet Night was a thing. It didn’t appeal enough to my heavy metal ass to make me drop everything and try it, but I did have an interest in it I couldn’t explain and I’d always intended on trying it out. (especially after I got into Love Live and idol anime for a bit.) But it was Shining Live that got me! And I really only downloaded Shining Live because I was super exhausted after a business trip, didn’t want to leave bed once I got back home, and just wanted to sink my teeth in something new I could enjoy for hours while lying down, haha.  

29. A set theme in shining live that you want to see in the future?

This will surprise nobody, but something tougher. More rock, more punk, more metal. I want all of them in studs and spikes and leather, and I want less polish. More rough! 

I’d also love a wrestler set complete with who’s-a-heel-who’s-a-face but that’s a pipe dream and a half, lmao. 

30. Why do you love your best boy?

Oh boy. 

I think he’s this powerhouse of a human bean who can face a ton of pain and meet it with a big middle finger. And that middle finger is chasing after ambitious dreams, of spreading the power and soul of the same music that made me who I am and influences so much of my work, but also being ... you know, smart about it? He’s an idol because like, sure, maybe it’s not the OG dream, but you can’t dream if you’re dead, and you also deserve to give yourself a life and platform to share some of who you are, and you can do a lot of good with that, too. (And I won’t lie, I respect the drama of a man who takes his hair that seriously and commits so hard to the aesthetic he wears fuckin mismatched contacts i just. charm point ) 

But at the same time....I don’t know, this might sound presumptuous, but. I think. I just think he’d think I’m as neat as I think he is. I’m an ambitious, passionate person, too, and I also furiously stick to my ideals, and I also love the same kind of soul of music he does. I lean a little more metal than I do rock, but I think that’s nice, like sharing it has that ‘alike but different’ kind of familiarity and novelty all at once. Sometimes it’s tough sharing just how deeply rock and metal have sculpted me and my artwork (and therefore my career), bc it’s so deeply personal to me, and sometimes there’s weird elitism/misogyny/racism to deal with, too. But. The way he talks about rock, the way he describes the passion and how it transcends identity and is just a pure rush of power and sharing your feelings..................it just feels like he Gets it the same way I do. Just that unspoken, burning passion and understanding. I know it sounds weird to feel that strongly over just a music genre, but I just vibe with how to him, it really isn’t ‘just’ a music genre. I feel more accepting of myself for it, and I’d like to think he’d be real proud of himself for that.  

And listen, like....I’m very sentimental, but I really don’t like saccharine, flowery, romantic kinds of affection to be lavished on me. Just be straightforward but also a little tsun about it fjdsjfas and ..... those are the kind of feelings I can accept. And that’s the way Ranmaru is, and it’s also grounded in the kind of reality that I don’t like to be swept away from. He’s just so cool and hardworking and unwavering in his passion, it makes it easier for me to do the same despite all the bumps in the road. This got real long but Ran’s a cool dude, haha, I got a lot of positives to say. 

Anyways, I never tag folks for these things, but I love seeing everyone’s answers! If you see this and wanna fill it, feel free to count this as a tag from me :) I know this got real long, but with 30 questions how could it not haha? Thanks for reading and sticking around! 

[jumphq]

A Jump, Little Children Renaissance?

It's hard to believe that it was just a week ago that we were playing with our newly-named New Oblivion Orchestra. That was a week ago? That was a week ago. And exactly one year ago that Vance the Manager sat us down with the plan for funding, writing, recording, releasing, and touring a new album. ONE YEAR AGO. Thank you for making this entire year one of the most fun we have ever, ever had. 

The day after our last show of the year we had a photo shoot with our friend and photographer Nathan Baerreis, and from the looks of the early shots, it's going to be a good one.

"Why would you have another photo shoot?", you ask, "Isn't Sparrow done, already?" What is left to do?

A lot. Four months isn't a ton of time for an album to be out. There are still so many people–so many fans of Jump, Little Children, even–that don't know about the album, or that we are writing new music. While it might be easier to get the word out thanks to various social media in some ways, in many ways it's just as hard as ever to introduce people to new music, because there is so much noise out there, literally and figuratively. It'll be tough for us, too, because we know that we're not going to be a full-time touring band again. We love our home lives: we like making our own coffee in the morning. We also like getting on a bus, playing shows, saying "hello", but I don't think we'll ever get back to the point where we are touring most of the year. It's a choice that we're happy with.

So how do we a) increase our "noise" both online and elsewhere without physically touring and b) try to support all of this work that we need to do to make it happen?

We have a few ideas, and many of them we discovered by accident. My brother Evan and I started doing Facebook and Instagram Live streams because we had things to announce that were band-related. They were awkward, at first, then awkward AND fun. Soon we were talking about things that were unrelated to Jump, Little Children because we enjoy talking to each other and have lots of things to talk about. The experience was made even better by you, chiming in in the comments. The Bivins Brothers Show (name pending) was born. Coming soon to a Facebook & Instagram Live and YouTube Channel near you. We're working on a few ideas of what the focus of the show will be, but no matter what we feel like it's an excellent way for us to all stay in touch.

After our first performance of Sparrow at the Footlights Players Theatre last year, we did an extremely fun "Q & A" that gave you the opportunity to ask questions about the album, and about us as a band. It got Jay thinking about how fun it would be to break down the entire album, song by song. For those of you familiar with the podcast "Song Exploder", that's what we'll be going for. Jay Clifford, a remarkably entertaining podcast host, will single out accordion tracks from "White Buffalo", interview Johnny Gray about how many basses he used in the song "Voyeuropa", and learn from producer Josh Kaler how much reverb went into the harmonica in "Cyclorama". It's going to be a high-quality and very interesting dive into our new album, and how the writing/recording process really goes, for those of you that don't know!

But there's more.

We kept a secret from many of you this year, and it's time for us to fess up. On December 29th we performed a very special show at the Queen Street Theatre in Charleston where we played the entirety of The Licorice Tea Demos and Magazine, back-to-back. Yes, we played "Opium" for the first time in probably 20 years, and "Dark and Lonely Man" for the first time in a loooooooong time. We only announced this show to our Facebook Group called Opium, a 1000-strong group of folk that has been a part of the official J, LC "fan club" for a while. 200 tickets sold in about three minutes. Many people on Opium didn't get to go, and there were plenty of you out there that didn't know about the show at all. We called it "#licmag". It was f'ing magical.

The Opium Group is open to anyone. It's a private on Facebook, but any fan of the band can apply, and you should: (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1621541794731647/). In Opium you'll often get first dibs on any ticket sales, special questions from Vance the Manager about merch and the like, even more interaction with the band, etc. This year, Opiates got a chance to come to see us play very old songs that you haven't heard in years. It's a very supportive group and we appreciate it so much. 

What if there was an "Opium+"? An "Opium Pro"? "Opium XS"? An "Underground Elite"?? What if we could build a place where JLC fans that want to support the band financially, to support this community, to share information and talk about live taping and in return for their support get special tickets and original content created by the five of us?

"Underground Elite 2.0" (name pending) will be built at patreon.com. We love Patreon's very-old-school concept of having Patrons support Artists directly. Old school like "The Renaissance". It has a ton of tools that we can use to be closer to those that want to help us stay a rock band, to help us write more albums, to help us just create. I personally support a number of Patreon accounts, just a dollar or ten a month, and I love the feeling it brings to be able to allow another artist the means to continue to do more of what they're doing, to feel like I'm helping them not have to find money doing something that would in any way keep them from being great podcasters, singer-songwriters, or comic book writers. 

Patreon lets you support an artist monthly or based on what they create. Either way helps. And we're ready to exchange this patronage with content. Besides Jay's yet-unnamed-podcast, our Patreon channel will be a home for special episodes of the Bivins Brothers Broadcast (name pending). We'll share newly written demos, and songs that "didn't make the cut" to be on Sparrow. Exclusive merchandise designed by Evan and some of our favorite designers. I’d actually love to write out some more lyric prints (or phrases?) for those that would like them. Would it be fun for Ward Williams to teach guitar and cello lessons, or Jonathan Gray perform "80's Mall Organ Store" renditions of songs on my Fun Machine? You're damned right it would be fun. Official Archivist Chris Slack is willing to share never-before-released Jump shows he has on file. Remember the "secret show" I mentioned above? #licmag? Chris recorded it, and as a Patreon subscriber, you'll get to hear it, and also our night with our incredible New Oblivion Orchestra.

And we'll be talking tickets. Early-Access tickets to shows that non-subscribers know about, and probably some that they don't. Tickets, podcasts, videos, merch, and a lot more. We're still dreaming stuff up.

We've always been a band that is very open to our fans. We try to write back when you email, answer when you call. I have (very recently) stood in line with a blazing fever after a show because I genuinely wanted to talk to each and every person that came to see us play. We don't have to; there are lots of bands that don't care about that stuff. To me, it's part of it, maybe the biggest part of it. The problem is that we're not going to be touring 250 days a year like we used to, and that could seriously limit our interactions. But if we can create a place where we're sharing stuff that we create, you're helping us create stuff, we throw in a decent forum platform, and Boom. We will get even more of this lovely community and communication, is my hope. We'll just more of these moments in our PJs on the Laz-E-Boy on our computers instead of at the end of a long night at a rock and roll club. 

Last year we hit January with a very clear plan for the entire year: fund the creation of an album of new songs, write songs in 3 months, record those songs in 2 months, release said album, tour that album for about a month, end the year with an orchestra. We pulled it off and learned a lot. We learned that we like having goals and we like creating and writing songs. Evan and I like recording ourselves talking about superheroes and intense diets, and yes, Jump, Little Children. Jay loves to talk about the songs he has written. There were some growing pains, but we feel ready. We want a plan for this year, and next year, too. Part of that will include more touring, and part of that will likely include a new album down the line. Sparrow has just dropped, though, and there is a ton to still say, a ton of people that need to find us. We think that Patreon will help with that. 

Our Social Media Sensei Alison Kendrick suggests that it's time we "let our hair down". #licmag was a good start, and 200 people got to see us, Scrunchies off. (Especially Ward Williams…holy sh&t!!, right?) We want more people to come to the next party. Including you. More information coming soon.

[songofmysnark]

The Bullshit Industry That Is Women’s Clothing

We’re gonna have a little talk, friends.  We’re gonna have a talk about the state of women’s clothing and how much it sucks.

I’m talking off-the-rack clothing aimed at adult, working women.  Your Ann Taylors.  Your J.Crews.  Your Banana Fucking Republics. The Nordstroms of the world. You know, the companies that are trying to get us to buy their most recent monstrosity of polyblended horror and the subject of plenty of thinkpieces, this one included.  “Are millennials killing the clothing industry?”  Yes, because you deserve to die, but also now we’re naked so can we please strike a plea bargain?

Before any of you get your panties in a twist, I’m counting stay at home moms as working women, because domestic labor is work, childcare is work, and juggling logistics is work.  If you can outsource it and the person who is doing it would reasonably expect to get paid, it’s work -- so don’t tell me being a SAHM isn’t work just because nobody’s paying her to do the job of a nanny, line cook, housekeeper, administrative assistant, executive director, coach, motivational speaker, teacher, or community organizer.  And also, no SAHM should have to resort to the MLM hell that is LueLaRoe in order to clothe her body.  Put the valentine heart printed butter leggings down, Karen.

So, working women, clothing ourselves is hard.  It has gotten worse over the past two decades.  Let us break this shit down:

Declining quality.  Don’t gaslight women over 30 and tell us that the decline in quality is all in our heads and that our expectations have increased as we’ve gotten older and more critical or educated.  A lot of us still have our blazers from J.Crew that we bought in 2007 -- at least I do.  I saved them because they’re gorgeous and sentimental, and now I save them as a physical reminder that clothing currently available to me as a retail consumer has sharply decreased in quality.  

Fit issues.  Between the unreasonably sloppy, inconsistent sizing (sometimes between two of the exact same garments), bizarre proportions, limitations on size ranges, and a seemingly universal refusal to cut garments for women larger than a B cup, women’s clothing fits horribly.  The solution to this problem seems to be to sew everything in stretchy, cheap materials that are clingy, unflattering, and translucent, which translates to...

...Awful styles.  Since the solution to lazy fit is stretch, the industry makes a lot of clothing styles that are not suitable for most women’s daily lives because they’re too cheap to use decent fabric in making clothing to account for the fact that they’re too cheap to invest in fit and quality construction.  Oh, you can’t wear a cold-shoulder top and a pair of stretchy black leggings to your corporate job?  Too fucking bad, that’s what’s in stock right now.  If we call it “Athleisure,” it’s all good!  And if you look shitty in it, it’s because you’re not athletic enough to be wearing it.

It’s funny how when women abandoned the corset, it was liberating -- until style started demanding that women become their own corsets.  No lumps or bumps or bulges allowed, but unless you want to wear Spanx (read: a girdle), you better diet yourself down to a flawlessly smooth size 2 if you don’t want to look horrible in a simple tshirt.

Sure, good style is available to those who have enough social or economic capital to access it -- and by social capital, I am including people who are thin.

The state of plus-sized fashion has always been appalling, but as the country tumbles into greater income inequality, the concentration of jobs paying a living wage into traffic-jammed cities with a lack of reasonably affordable or accessibly housing, the masses are not going to be getting thinner.  The workday has been getting longer, either by extending hours or by making it very clear that people who leave before 6 are slackers, or by tethering us to email in the spirit of “leaning in.”  Sorry, when you spend 1-3 hours/day commuting to your soul-sucking job that doesn’t pay enough to afford help to outsource all of the shit you have to do on weekends in order to function as an adult, the “obesity epidemic” is not going to end.  How about we call a spade a spade: the “obesity epidemic” is a side-effect of the confluence of income inequality and late-stage capitalism.  “Calories in, calories out, it’s so simple!” say people who are able to prioritize and afford to be thin, and are rewarded in kind with clothing that at least isn’t punishingly ugly or uncomfortable.

Let’s talk about uncomfortable clothing: there’s a lot of it when you get out of the stretchy-spandex land masking the laziness of corporate clothing behemoths behind 2% spandex in an already forgiving knit.  Wovens, friends, let’s snark on wovens.  Wovens are the fabrics that are stiffer -- think jeans without spandex, chinos without spandex, button down shirts without spandex, your wool coat without spandex, etc.  

Believe it or not, young people, most of these items didn’t stretch 10-15 years ago, or if they did it was a tiny amount -- enough so that you could comfortably drive a car while still wearing a garment that was purposefully cut and constructed so that it would lay close to the body.  Instead of spandex, clothing was constructed with more ease -- more space, looser in areas where a normal human body needs space to move.  And nobody looked shitty, because the clothing was made so that the structure of the garment kept it from looking like a sack of potatoes; that structure comes from quality fit, construction, and materials.  

And of course, companies will retort that if they did anything the way they did 10-15 years ago, costs would skyrocket!  Materials are expensive and skilled labor isn’t cheap, especially if paid a living wage in a country with labor regulations to protect workers!  To which I say: bullshit.  Costs won’t skyrocket unless you expect customers to pad the pockets of your shareholders and executives to make up for increased production costs that narrow the profit margin.  Essentially, you want the same profit margin that was established and became the norm when you switched to shitty quality while raising prices.

The problem is really of your own doing, Mr. Mall Fashion Executive Dude; you trained your customers to expect good quality clothing for decades, rested on your laurels while increasing your profit margins by cutting production costs, got everyone on the corporate end used to booming profits based on this giant margin, and then got confused when shit went south.  You went for short-term profits, banking on the reputation of your brand to carry the company through a quality control nosedive.  And now we’re rubbing your face in it.

So here’s some advice to the corporate powers that be: 

Make some fucking decent clothing.

Make the entire line in a wide range of sizes, 00-24+ with no differentiation between “plus” and “misses.”  

Give women’s clothing the attention, quality, consistency, and detail of men’s items.

Stop putting random shit on your clothing.  I want a goddamn tshirt without a sequin, weird design, picture of a bird, a saying, etc.

Don’t “bring back a classic” and mark it up 200%.  Take a hint: we all still have that item from 2003, don’t think we won’t compare them and put the videos taking you down for both an outrageous markup and a comparatively mediocre product.  Looking at you, Lululemon’s “full on Luon” (i.e. regular luon from a few years prior with a new name and higher price).  Looking at you, J.Crew icon trench from 2003 (i.e. the old trench marked up higher than it was before but with a shittier fit and cheaper materials).  

If your wovens look like shit on the average American woman, that means you need to hire people who know how to design a decent garment, use better materials, and learn about ease, drape, and tailoring.  

If your pants don’t fit women with hourglass figures, the problem is your pants.

And finally:  Listen to the women screaming at you on Instagram every time you roll out a crappy collaboration.  What do they want?  Natural fibers, better fit, a size range that is inclusive and reflects the general public without arbitrary cutoffs, good design, cohesive collections, solid basics, durability, functional pockets that can hold a fucking iphone, classic lines, and comfort.  

If that is too much of an order, maybe get the fuck out of the industry that makes clothing for women, because there are actually companies that have demonstrated that it is possible to do it right:  MM LaFleur (pricey, but excellent), Boden, Land’s End, etc. are all examples of companies that manage not to completely screw the pooch on selling clothing to women.  Hell, I’ll even give you Eileen Fisher.  Give me some linen and a functional pocket, Ms. Fisher, I’ll gladly look like a sexless therapist who moonlights at an art gallery.

But seriously, fuck right off with this cold-shoulder, poly-blend, lazy bullshit.

[barpurplewrites]

Keep an open mind - Chapter 3

Previous chapters (HERE)

-x-x-x-

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

Belle nibbled her bottom lip as she set her pint down squarely on the coaster. She’d been expecting this question, so had given some thought to her answer.

“I used to, in the same way I used to believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Ghosts are just another fairy tale.”

She’d been focused on her glass as she spoke, when she’d finished she looked up and caught a sad smile on Gold’s face. Was he judging her? No, it didn’t look like judgement, or pity, it was sadder, more personal. How odd.

Jefferson waved an expressive hand; “I take the role of Mulder in our little troop, but for magic not aliens, although I believe in them to, it would be the height of vanity to assume we are alone in the universe.”

Belle hadn’t expected anything less from Jefferson. She’d known him long enough to have heard his excited babbling about various unexplained phenomena.  

Ariel nudged her shoulder; “I’m a full-on season one Scully. The only things that go bump in the night are dodgy pipes, animals and other humans.”

That surprised Belle; her first impression of Ariel had been of a flighty and fanciful woman. Her skill with sound engineering had shown a strong practical streak, but Belle still would have expected her to believe in all this ghost stuff.

Gold sighed; “Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are lies we tell children to make the world more magical. Ghosts are lies we tell ourselves to make the world less painful.”

His voice was steady, but the depth of emotion in his eyes was heart-breaking. Belle wanted to reach out and comfort him, but she resisted the instinct. She didn’t not know Gold well enough to know if her actions would be welcome, and she didn’t want to overstep on her first day on the job. There was a story behind his words, one that was clearly personal and painful.

Jefferson cleared his throat and said jovially; “Time for trampoline tennis.”

“What?”

Belle looked around the bar wondering what sort of crazy game that could possibly be. Ariel chuckled; “Don’t worry. It’s what we call bouncing ideas back and forth about the episode. Not sure when we started calling it that, but it’s stuck.”

The other three pulled out notebooks from pockets and bags. Belle felt awkward that she didn’t have anything on her, she’d not been warned about this. She was just about to say she’d run back to the motel when Gold slid a brand-new notebook and pen across the table to her. It was a handsome thing, black fake leather embossed with Bumps in the Night logo.

Gold shrugged; “Should have given you this this morning, to welcome you to the crew, but I forgot it along with my gloves.”

“Thank you.”

Belle was a compulsive notebook buyer. She had some lovely ones at home, far too many still unused to justify buying more, not that that ever stopped her. This one was more of a journal, or project book. The paper was a nice thickness, and lightly lined, ideal for making sketches and for taking notes. Pockets inside the covers allowed for the safekeeping of loose paper and there were dividers that could be repositioned. It was something she would have bought for herself.

Gold smiled at her obvious enjoyment of the notebook. He flipped to the back and showed her the printed pages tucked within the pocket there.

“Our most commonly used resources. We do have a few free lance researchers who help out from time to time, but we’re such a small crew that everyone needs to pitch in. I know the pay doesn’t reflect that, but we normally get a decent end of season ratings bonus.”

Belle nodded as she scanned the list. It wasn’t unusual on small productions for everyone to muck in. The experience was always helpful, and the promise of a bonus was a nice thing to look forward to. The list was a mix of normal web addresses for land registry, archives of old maps and ancestry records, then there were the odder items that she supposed she’d have to get used to in this job; Reddit and Tumblr accounts that focused on ghosts and the supernatural.

“With so much of this being on line I surprised you don’t just give us tablets.”

Ariel and Jefferson laughed. Gold rolled his eyes; “You’re not the first to suggest it. I’m old fashioned, I like writing things down.”

“That and he’s terrible for leaving chargers in motels.”

Gold laughed at Jefferson’s comment; “Aye there is that too.”

 They decided to order food before they got started on the trampoline tennis. There was some friendly bickering about pineapple and its place on pizza. Jefferson was dead against it, while Ariel and Belle were indifferent. Gold was for it, claiming that it was vaguely healthy. Food on the road frequently was deep fried, so getting fruit when you could wasn’t a bad idea. A quick look at the menu proved that salad wasn’t an option. Belle made a note to herself to pick up some apples from a grocery store tomorrow.

After everyone had had a slice or two Gold asked: “So, what do we think of our Hanging Figure?”

Jefferson flicked a piece of pineapple off his slice of pizza and shrugged; “I think this one is going to end up being something mundane.”

Gold wiped his mouth with a napkin; “I think you’re right. No deaths in the property, no missing people, nothing that would suggest a ghostly presence.”

“Not even a creepy feeling, just an empty house. Although I wish the owner had left the carpets in place, the echoes we’re getting from footsteps are annoying.”

The heels of Gold’s boots had caused Ariel some major sound problems. Viewers would never know that Gold had done most of the internal shots in his stocking feet. Belle had managed not to giggle at his ghost Pokémon socks, just.

Belle took her camera out of her bag and flicked through some of the photos she’d taken of the window. There was an outline there that looked like a head and torso hanging from a rope. It was visible from all the angles she’d been able to take a photo from, outside and inside. There was nothing on the glass that would rub off, that had been one of the first things Gold had tested. She dipped a pizza crust in the pot of sour cream and jotted down some ideas.

“What are you thinking Belle?”

As was typical of these things Gold asked his question just as Belle had taken a bite of pizza. She chewed and hurriedly swallowed almost choking herself in the process. Gold grimaced and handed her a glass of water.

“Sorry about that.”

She waved his apology away as she glugged the water down.

“No worries, it happens,” – she looked at her notebook, - “If the window hadn’t been replaced twice I’d say that there was a defect in the glass. Is it possible that this is some long running prank and the window fitter has deliberately put the outline there?”

Jefferson thumbed through his own notebook; “Possible, but the replacements were done by two different owners twenty years apart, both used different companies. Nah, I don’t see it. Besides where’s the money?”

Finding out who would profit from potential haunting was the best way to discover the truth. One of the episodes Belle had watched after she’d accepted the job had used this approach to uncover a brother attempting to scam his siblings out of their inheritance by claiming the house was haunted.

Gold tapped his own notebook and shook his head; “There’s nothing like that here. If anything, the previous owners have lost money because of that window, and the current owner is hoping that we find an ordinary explanation, so he can sell up.”

“Okay so that leaves us with damp, or maybe a structural defect in the window frame? Y’know causing the glass to warp?”

Belle felt her suggestions were weak, but everyone else nodded encouragingly.

“We can look into both of those the day after tomorrow, the owner has given us permission to replace the window.”

“I should set up a camera, maybe two, one inside and one out, to film the window over night after it’s replaced. We might see the Hanging Figure reappear.”

She said it with a smile on her face but received serious nods from the others. She was going to need to remember that this gig might feel like a joke to her but two of the people who could fire her believed in this spooky stuff. Just because the content was on the kooky side didn’t mean that she shouldn’t do a thorough job.

While she’d been mental chastising herself Ariel had said something that had made Gold pull a face. Ariel poked in his direction with a pizza crust.

“Look I know you’re not a fan of them Gold, but they’re expected on a spook show, so we will set them up and show that we used them even if we don’t get anything.”

Ah, this was about the EMF and EVP. She was about to ask why Gold didn’t like them, but he spotted the obvious question on her face.

“It’s daft, but those damn machines give me tinnitus, especially the EVP. But Ariel is right they are expected, so we’ll set them up for the overnight, okay?”

Ariel gave him a happy grin; “Good, it’s usually more of a battle than that.”

“To be fair you do normally ask me about it first thing in the morning before I’ve had a cuppa.”

Ariel turned to Belle; “Did Jefferson warn you about that? Gold is a bear with a sore head before he’s had a cup of tea in the mornings. It’s his only diva-like quality.”

Gold gave a over the top gasp and place his hand against his heart; “You wound me Ariel I’m not that bad at all.”

Jefferson and Ariel both cocked an eyebrow and him and nodded. Gold deflated and flapped a hand at them; “Okay maybe I am,” – he smothered a yawn with the back of his hand, - “and I’m going to be much worse if I don’t call it a night and get some sleep.”

It wasn’t late, but it was heading in that direction and they did have an early start the next day. Belle was surprised when Gold collected the receipts for their meal and drinks. That sort of clerical work normally got shunted off on to one of the women. When she mentioned as much to Ariel on the walk back to the motel, she just shrugged; “Gold likes balancing the books, it’s relaxing for him. I suggested he try yoga, but he laughed at me.”

Belle snorted as she tried to picture Gold in various yoga poses. It was all the funnier because her imagination had conjured suit wearing Gold doing yoga. She was still smiling at the idea when she bid everyone good night and headed into her room.

[natrozpackaging]

POST 3: Activity 2

I definitely learned more from the printing & cutting aspect of this project than the digital part.

I have a decent printer at home, so I printed my packaging off on a piece of matte photo paper. The quality of the paper was nice and stiff, but not too stiff, so scoring and cutting went smoothly. 

The first thing I noticed was how thick my typography was for my serif font & my slab font. WAY too thick. I imagine this is due to my printer, but I should still keep this in mind. It would have been valuable to do a test print in black and white before hand.

Secondly, for the black starburst shape on the front, I orginally cut out the type from the shape. In printing, this caused some problems, where it didn’t show up properly. Leaving the type as an actual shape vs a cut out helped it print much better. 

My images themselves, like the eyes and the mascara brush illustration are blurry, as I scanned them and cut them out to put on my packaging, but I wanted to include them for accuracy sake so I’m not terribly upset about the blurring. 

Another thing that was off was my colours. The original packaging is a peachier tone, and mine was a cooler pink. And of course I don’t have access to embossing or metallics, so I had to settle for a light grey and no embossing.

One very important thing I missed in my digital creation were these slight inset corners on the flaps. When I printed my piece out, the flaps dind’t fit inside the box. I realized it was because of these slightly inside edges. They’re there so that it fits snugly inside the box. 

All in all, I came very close to recreating my package. My typography is very close, in size and font, my placement of objects was measured and placed with care, and except for missing the inset edges of the flaps, my box is accurately sized and fit together very well. All in all, I learned how detail-oriented you need to be when it comes to packaging. There’s a lot more to think about, like how things physically fit together, and little tricks to making it work, like inset edges and such.

[squeemcsquee]

HPLD Nerd Con 2018

So, this past weekend, on Sat 6/16/18, @lechevaliermalfet attended the HPLD Nerd Con in Havana, IL. It’s a free, small-scale con hosted by the Havana Public Library District. We heard about it through Facebook, thanks to La Vie Cosplay’s facebook posts and decided, “why not?” Havana isn’t too far from home, really. We had fun, got some free stuff, and @lechevaliermalfet won a door prize, too! It’s a great event for first-timers, younger con-goers, or those who want a relaxed atmosphere. Click that “Keep Reading” link if you are curious and wanna know more.

Since I found myself getting scattered as I wrote this, I’m putting little headlines over each relevant portion of this review. 

Size

I want to be up front and clear that when I say this is small-scale, I do mean it. Everything happened in one room in a Havana Park District facility. I stood on one wall and took the following three photos, which show the size of the room pretty well (I hope).

As you can see, they had a decent number of vendors for the size, some gaming, a panel area, and crafting / reading to kill time. Board games were also available for check-out from the registration table. Honestly, I thought the space was really used pretty well. I think I only noticed one issue from it. It wasn’t a deal-breaker for me, but it definitely was something that I think could be improved for next year.

The panel/Q&A area should be partitioned off from the rest of the room.

That’s it.  See, the panel area are those chairs off to the right in that final photo. It isn’t a big area, and panelists did have microphones. BUT, sometimes the wall of sound from the rest of the room would overwhelm the sound of one voice coming through a mic. @lechevaliermalfet and I theorized that maybe some temporary partitions would help with the noise. Panels Speaking of panels, I admittedly only took one photo (I know, shame on me!).

There were 3 panels on that schedule, but I would argue that the General Cosplay Q & A that La Vie Cosplay held was actually a 4th panel. As such, I think it would have been nicer to have it running in its own time slot, instead of concurrent with the Robotics panel. I think it would have created a nice line-up too, with 2 cosplay panels and 2 non-cosplay panels alternating through the day. But that’s my opinion and I’m also selfish, because I love learning more about both cosplay and robots.

We attended two of the three panels: the Robots panel, which was interesting but ran very short, and a panel on wigs for cosplay that La Vie Cosplay presented. Both were definitely interesting. 

Merch

Besides panels, there were obviously talented dealers to look at and potentially buy from. We did walk away with some stuff, too:

Honestly, I hadn’t even expected to see much I wanted to buy, let alone walk away with what we did (along with a small thing each for @someoldmemory and @el-draco-bizarro)

Giveaways (Scavenger Hunt, Swag Bag, Raffles)

If you still had time to kill (and we did), the con was running a nerdy scavenger hunt. I’ve got a photo of my card below. Please excuse the crappy quality - I took some of these photos after the con, once I was at home, when I realized I wanted to document some of this.

The scavenger hunt didn’t take @lechevaliermalfet and I long: I think for each of us, it was under 10 minutes. But it wasn’t really aimed at us, you know? I think younger con goers probably got more of a kick out of it. What entertained me was seeing where the images were placed - I saw a few of them before I even actually made the connection with the scavenger hunt. 

Once you completed it, you could draw a prize from the giveaway table (that’s why there are 2 little aliens in that photo - we got them as prizes).

They were well stocked! And if you take note of that Slytherin printout, you’ll see the ‘L’ was bolded - that was one of the clue cards for the scavenger hunt!

I loved that giveaway table. You see, you could choose one free item whether you won a thing or not. Just because you were attending the con! 

For a first con, especially to a kid who may not have money to spend on dealers, the idea of getting a free item from the table (and more, if you won the scavenger hunt or an hourly raffle) is pretty cool. I mean, I’m 32 and my inner 8-year-old was going nuts.

Actually when we registered, we got a little swag bag with our badge:

Again, I had expected to walk away from this con empty-handed or maybe with a print, at best. So getting a swag bag when i walked in the door was a win for me!

The con also ran raffles every hour. @lechevaliermalfet won one of the first drawings and got to choose from the small handful of 18+ prizes.

I also walked away with a comic, though I don’t think mine was quite as epic. Still, it turned out to be an interesting read anyway.

Cosplay

I did show up as Twilight Sparkle. And yes, my Spike was with me, though he was in my bag (which wasn’t with me) when I took this photo.

There were other cosplayers - the event page on Facebook has a nice group photo. But since many were (or at least appeared) to be under 18, and because of the relaxed atmosphere, I wasn’t running around snapping photos like I might have at a larger con.

There was a cosplay contest scheduled at the end of the day, but we opted to skip it. 

Badges

The badge was a little big, but I like it. Assuming I ever get around to putting badges in an album, I’m not sure this one will fit. I also noticed they didn’t date the badge, which means they can probably re-use any leftovers for next year.

The lanyard is some cut-up Spiderman-patterned cloth. I love the simplicity of it, and it’s still so much cooler than a generic cord lanyard. 

Pokemon Go

This was the same day as the Tyranitar Community Day. But given where I was, I only managed to get one Tyranitar, since I only lured in a handful of Larvitars with incense. Tbh, if I hadn’t had a crapton of candy, I wouldn’t have even gotten my one. Also, Central IL was under a Heat Advisory, so I really wasn’t inclined to leave the building to go walk around - or at least lounge on the nearby playground while waiting for Pokemon to show.

The experience as a whole

It was fun. It was relaxed. It’s definitely not aimed at me, and that’s perfectly okay, because it was still done well enough to be enjoyed by all. This is perfect for kids dipping their toes into the convention waters or for parents who want to know what the fuss is about. It’s a great introduction to the con atmosphere and community. 

Would I do it again? Maybe. For me, driving just under an hour to kill three to four hours is definitely something I’d consider. I don’t know that I would recommend it to anyone who’s got farther to go, unless they’re stopping by while en route somewhere. 

[pokefan531]

Sword and Shield Overview Part 2

So this review took much longer than expected, as I typed some things, but forgotten about this review, and stuffs, so I finally got more things to add from my part 1 back in last November as well as looking back at the game a couple of times to give off my thoughts on the game itself. I will address the flaws and the great of the game. To give off of what the game is, it's a decent Pokemon game.

The Mechanics Once I take a try on the mechanics, a couple of them are pretty interesting. Well, the gyms got brought back, but as stadiums. It's a really nice way to have everyone look at gym battles. We never really see random people watching a gym battle in any Pokemon games, and it widens the world. However, The only problem is any type of battle, the field is really small. It seems like each Pokemon are too close together, even if they're not. I would like the player and the opponent would distant themselves more to widen the battle more, almost like Pokemon Battle Revolution. That way, we don't have to see trainers disappears when some moves are being used and reappear. Also, it would've show more of the attack moves. Now the next mechanic that I liked is the wild area. The wild area is really an interesting concept and it does give you a feel of a open world. The random weathers, items, and hidden items that shines adds the new generation of wild Pokemon world. Well, I wished a couple of places in main Galar have movable camera, but it's good enough to see the big part of the wild area. I would've picked longer draw distance on objects, as they're too close, but I'll explain later about it. Dynamax, well it's a mixed bag. It seemed like an interesting idea as I can see it be useful, but you would have to know when to use it at the end of the pokemon battle when one of us have a last Pokemon. It can be a bit unfair when batling online as it's a bit OP if timing hasn't been used correctly, like using it in first turn instead of later. I do find Dynamax more fitting for raid battles as it's battling against a dynamax pokemon in the wild or just a straight up dynamax battle. I know a lot of people don't like dynamax as it can be over powered, so I can see why some battles don't make use of it on online battles to make it a more fair battle. I do appreciate Dynamax concept, but I think it needed its time to plan out even better in the game to get more appreciation. Still, I don't mind using them in some battles like the post game or straight dynamax battles or even battling gym leaders or Champion Leon, although the difficulty can be a bit all over the place especially playing it online and the reason why I wished it was better thoughout. I don't hate dynamaxing though. The Bike is useful, and you can surf with it instead of having Pokemon use Surf. For me, I think Sun and Moon removing HMs and to have all the moves being used without any Pokemon learning them, is an interesting idea. Flying to cities by using a map sounds like a fine idea. Sword and Shield seems to take half of the changes from Sun and Moon. Autosaving is a handy feature, but I prefer to save it manually incase if I haven't left the building or area without saving, or if I ever have disabled it and forgot about it. I still prefer old fashioned saving.

Difficulty Well, as much some of the ideas makes the game enjoyable, there are some parts of the game where it's too easy, and it's mostly not related to the aforementioned ideas in the game. It seems like I don't really feel much of the difficulty on some battles, especially the later main story. I didn't grind as much. Most of the Whydon City story were too easy, and I thought it would be more challenging. The difficulty was too easy in almost all parts of Whydon, from entering the Whydon Stadium, to battle Oleana and meet Rose. I feel like they should've been more challenging. The Whydon City should've been a bit more challenging to all Gym Leaders than when you battle them the first time. I just defeated them with barely any Pokemon change. Even the Rose story part, they all seem too easy, even Oleana. I thought Oleana would be challenging, but that battle didn't feel as challenging as I thought it would be. Prior to battling Leon in the finals, the most challenging Gym Leader was Raihan. I lost to him a couple of times, so he is pretty challenging than anything in Whydon City except for Leon. As for Leon, He seems challenging enough for the finals, but I wished all gym leaders were a bit better, even re-battling Raihan. I mean even with all EXP shares permanently active, it's still feels like they could've made more balanced battle, like what I saw with first battle of Raihan and final Leon battle. A couple of Gym Leaders difficulty are appropriate as I lost a few times on a few of them. The first Gym Leader I didn't lose the first time was Bea, and it seems like a fair battle like most of the gym leaders in their first battle. As for random trainers, I would've have them in slightly higher level outside the gym, but more so Team Yell. Team Yell grunts are a bit easy, even on the task to get to Piers on Gym Battle. Now as I was thinking about the Dynamax battle, it did make some battles a bit more challenging, and I lost to some gym leaders by their last Pokemon, and mostly Final Battle with Leon. However, dynamax can have its difficulty a bit all over the place, not as often on gym battles or stadiums, but more so online battles, mostly depending how the rules of the battles are set up. As for Raid Battles, yes, they're pretty difficult and everyone told me that Zygrande Raid is the hardest one in the game, so maybe more challenge in the game. Overall, the difficulty is at the least better than LGPE, even with some mishaps that makes some parts of the game a bit too easy. I'll get over another thing later where I explain my thoughts on gamefreak's words as to why later Pokemon games became more easy, and how they could've improve it.

Graphics and Animation: Okay, this would have lots of explaining to do about this game with graphics and animation. Well, as it was released in late 2019, being a rushed game, it was not impressive. As I mentioned about Gamefreak's words on their focus on high quality animation as to not having all pokemon available to the game's release, we had to focus on the graphics and animation to see if not having all Pokemon was worth it, and it turns out it remained underwhelming. Sure, you guys can point out the trees with bad textures all you want, and was relevant at the time, but I don't think one bad example could prove the game's underwhelming expectations, but a couple more problems to prove it. I could also say gameplay will often be the most priority over the graphics, which is commonly true. To put this in my view of this high quality animation thing in to view the game's graphics and animation itself, and I know the game has more than graphics, but I just want to review this part on its own. As I said, it's underwhelming, at least lots of parts of the game. As it was rushed for Christmas money, some parts of the game were not as impressive. Sure a simple fix with the tree texture would be ideal, and simple animations on the moves like double kick could've had more work. Not to mention the Mouse Cursor were printed on the beginning of the cutscene and end credits, which those weren't recorded from OBS program, but rather the development version of the games, that also contains a mouse cursor. With those aside, I could mention how the game's performance and resolution goes. Seeing the game being sub-720p 30fps (portable) and sub-1080p 30fps (docked) on outdoors and special moves on dynamax battles, it isn't optimized well, compared with other games that would look superior. When I take a look at the beta on CFW switch, it couldn't stay at 30fps on Hulbury City, and under 20fps down from the daycare center, when staying at constant 720p (portable) and 1080p (docked). As a rushed game, they also don't have time for further optimization. As Gamefreak do 3D Pokemon games from X and Y, they aren't best at optimizing rendering for performance. Gen 6 lags with 3D-stereo on (no reason to use 3D-stereo) and without 3D, some Pokemon lags the game, especially with double and horde battles. Other 3DS games can get away with higher polygon counts due to further optimization. With Sword and Shield, this trend continues in a smaller extent. While reducing resolution to stay at 30fps, there's no lag. I was kinda unimpressed when coming out from home and seeing the outdoors in lower resolution, but later on, I didn't really mind. I did use a texture pack from BSOD gaming, and there was a couple of improvements. As for the animations, like I said, I wished TPC didn't force the game to be out too early (to sync with the merch) so they would iron out animation errors or redo simple animation. The mom in the beginning of the game doesn't turn to the other direction when talking to her. Lots of pop-ins and NPCs and items having short draw distance instead of reducing polygons, and with Onix popping in at front of you in Monostoke City. I saw all the list from DistantKingdom's videos, and well, that was disappointing at the time. Some animation flaws, might be laughable, but still looking like it was not ready. BUT, does those problems make the entire game look bad? My answer, if the gameplay is actually better than the graphics, then no. You may still have fun playing the game if you can get past the graphic and animation problems. However, I can understand being disappointed with it if you mainly focus on the whole dexit situation of its statement, but at the least, none of the game was ever gamebreaking or any lower quality graphics or animation should take the game's quality by a huge amount. Couple of other parts of the main game can look better, such as the Stadiums and Route 3 and 5 looking pretty fine for me, and also Raid battles too. As for the main game, the graphics is overall... okay. It doesn't look really bad overall, even one small tree texture doesn't really justify all its graphics. However, like I said, more development time would've make many places of the game look better, but also stated that graphics are usually overshadowed by gameplay, to which it's at the least tolerable if you play it.

Now let's get into DLC's animation and graphics. Short answer, it improved better, more so Crown Tundra. While the outdoors are still at sub-native resolution, it still managed to look even better. Gamefreak at the least had more time to develop with two DLC maps. Isle of Armor improves itself with not only the visuals, but also animation expressions from the characters and fast slowpokes. Only problem was the Pokemon couldn't keep up with you while running, but the graphics seems to be more stable and refined, even better than some parts of mainland Galar. My favorite design of the map was the island with the big tree with six sub-islands around it. As for Crown Tundra, wow...as Gamefreak proved that they can make Sword and Shield graphically impressive, this is it. I know not in a level of Pokken, but still big enough to say. Like Armor, Tundra has many variants of areas with different weathers, and they managed to make the second map look more pleasing. Two places of the Tundra map I can say that looks really great in my memory is Dyna Tree Hill and Slippery Slope. Freezington looks great too, and with many trees around and not lagging, it's really amazing. The Legendary Birds from Kanto in Tundra Form looks amazing. All the animations you see are pretty acceptable. I could point out the problem with the fade-ins and black screens and not do animation, like Hop getting hit by the apple Pokemon missing, but still, there's plenty of animation done and done better in the DLCs.

Designs: For a 3D Pokemon game, I like all the character models. Even Sordward and Shielbert's model design. They finally have right portions, not being in LGPE, and they have movable pupils so they don't have to use texture-illusion to make limited eye and eyebrow expressions. All of character design looks generally great. As for the Pokemon, I could only mention Galar Pokemon, and older Pokemon with Galar form, being in a fine design. Like the graphics paragraph about the game being rushed, much of the older Pokemon were imported from 3DS games, which, like LGPE, which isn't really new. Besides those, the new models of Pokemon looks great. What about the maps? Some cities looks well designed, and others, not so great. Many routes and caves lookes more straightforward, especially routes. Open routes that are around Monostoke City and Hammerlock City are the best routes of the game due to being open and have more variety to show what an open world route should look like. Despite some parts looking inferior, graphics wise, the map design shows a lot of good work with it. Now many routes, a lot of them just became more of a hallway, and not really expanded enough. Route 3, Route 5, and Galar Mine No.1 are the ones I could think off that a lot of them are like. I like Route 4 and 6's designs the most since they tend to expand wide enough for items and trainers around instead of looking like lines of trainers waiting for you for a battle. LOL! Monostoke City and Circhester are the cities that are well designed at least for me. The least designed one was Spikemuth. Sorry Piers, your city is too simple and straight. Yeah, I wished the city wasn't a straight line and add more variety to make the whole Team Yell challenges more creative. Whydon City, I do wish it was a bit more like Castelia City or Lumiose City level of large city, since it's a capital city, being based on London. For what we got, it's fine. To go over the characters, I would have to review their design in the character section. Overall, model designs and new Pokemon are done pretty well and some of the maps looks great, but lots of routes and some caves are just hollow. They need to be more expanded and have a lot of work, including the mentioned cities.

Before I get into the characters, I want to make it clear about being a 3D Pokemon game. I hear some people think this game, or any past games, remain 2D, and I disagree. Sure 2D can show more expressions, but 3D can proven to be as good as 2D, as to how this game was compared with Battle Revolution and Pokken. These games proved that the main games can work with 3D. Especially as an MMD animator, I know a lot about 3D animation and can be almost as expressive as 2D. Sure Pokemon or characters turning slowly from animation subject isn't completely realistic for its aesthetics, but Pokken and Battle Revolution proved that, and so did the DLCs. Even Legend of Zelda, with their games given more dev time, showed their transition to 3D, even with Link's Awakening, has managed to look really great with 3D models and all. Also, even back in N64 days, with Pokemon Stadium 1 and 2, and Snap, was also cool to see Pokemon in 3D, even seeing more polygons and low resolution textures. So I am completely fine with main Pokemon games going 3D. Just like how I'm fine with Miraculous Ladybug being a 3D animation, even with old 2D trailer, but that's another story.

Characters Well, here's the part I really want to get to, explaining each characters and what I think about themselves and their characteristics. Victor and Gloria are just players, and funny memes with Gloria as Scottish Trainer. Victor seems like a cool trainer, and Gloria is just cute. Hop, I know some of you will say he's a complete copy of Hau from Sun and Moon, same personality and animation, and I get it. However, he seems to have different goals at least, so I didn't feel like Hop was a rehash of Hop, almost, even with same personality. With that said, he seems like a good friend in the games. Hop seems really supportive with his brother Leon. He wasn't happy when Bede once defeated him. Champion Leon, he's a pretty great character. Him being friendly to the player since the beginning of Sword and Shield, and he's pretty funny. There's a gag of him being bad at directions, and lots of fans likes to play around with him getting lost for comedic purposes. Not only that, but he's well supportive with Hop too, and also had been friends with Sonia since childhood. I don't really see romantic connection with the two, but just friends, which is rare to see platonic friendship in media. We get to see his own room in Hop's house, and with many things we see in both Twilight Wings and the anime so far, he's an interesting Champion. One thing I really wished they could've done with Leon is he should've have a Dragapult as his main Pokemon instead of Charizard. It would make more sense to get to know more of Galarian Pokemon in Galar, instead of using Charizard for just fan favorites. It didn't really add anything special, but other than that, he's a fun person. I know some people hate him for being dumb? Or if he was a weak champion? He seems to show more character than some might say, so I'm glad he's got good enough attention to have getting lost jokes and great enough fanarts. Sonia, I like her design, and I think she's attractive. Sonia is pretty helpful during the game, by giving you items and helping the events during the main game. She seems really and is best friends with Nessa. All the gym leaders are likable. We have Milo. Wow, it takes really long to get to the first gym battle. Milo seems like a nice person and has many Wooloos with him. His gym puzzle was fine. It's funny when certain people comment him lacking a nose, but he has one. Next is Nessa! A really lovable Nessa. She seems like a really strong trainer, and also has interesting friendhip with Sonia. Nessa looks like a comedic swimmer if I think about her roles in my videos. But yeah, she seems like a great friend with other gym leaders. Kabu the fire type. I like how he came from Hoenn, and also seems pretty serious gym leader. As I remember, he was pretty nice to the trainer, even after battling when he congratulate the player and Hop for battling three gym leaders. He also seems like a comedian when thinking about fanon stories. lol And my most favorite gym leader of Sword and Shield is Bea! Bea is my favorite character of the generation too! She's adorable, and really strong and tomboyish, the type of female characters I love the most. Bea looks always brave and wow, she's got skills. I liked her backstory of how she's trained, and has her smiles too. I liked all the media she's in, even Journeys, and she's adorable. I liked the cute kid Bea. Bea is my favorite that I could go on and make a single post about her as to why she is my favorite. Bea is pretty nice, even with harsh training she has got for years. Oh and her cuteness on eating sweats are adorable ^w^ Alister is also pretty interesting character. I only got Sword so I couldn't battle him. Alister's design with the ghost mask looks like he could scare others on a party, being a ghost gym leader. Many people headcanon him as Bea's younger brother, and please let this be a thing, Journeys or in general, Game Freak and Pokemon Company. My headcanon while being related to Bea as siblings, Bea is supportive for Allister's emotions if he ever feels scared or cries, to show both siblings in care. After Bea or Allister, we get Opal. An interesting old lady who's a gym leader, being a fan of pink. Well, her stories going around Bede is funny. She goes to him and takes him to her care and have Bede be around Pink, which is funny. Also she asked two questions during the battle to not give you status affected to your Pokemon. One of them asked the player how old she is, and being 86 is correct, she also states to be polite. Well, honesty doesn't seem to be usually polite, isn't it? XD Next would be Gordie. Gordie looks like a fun guy who likes riding with rock Pokemon. He seems to be friendly with other trainers too. It's interesting that he's the son of Melony, who's a gym leader too, if playing Shield in place of Gordie. She's also the likable mother, and I could say moreso than any player's mothers due to the fact that we get to see at least parents of a gym leader or at least has a family, IN A GAME (not counting anime Brock or Misty) and I know Norman is your dad in Hoenn. However, Melony and Gordie has nice share of family in the stadium, and she seems like a nice person. She is really prepared for ice climates and hey, she's an interesting big and beautiful mother. The next one and most interesting one is Piers! Piers is one of the most interesting written gym leader in the game. Piers appears more and even post game too. He is the only one who never relies on Dynamax battles nor own any stadiums and just gym, even though the town he's in is too simple, but doesn't affect him at least. I know some don't like dynamax and it can hae some flaws of it depending on the player, but his dislikes of it seems interesting seeing him being different from other gym leaders and him being afraid of them. He has a sister named Marnie, which I'll get to in a bit. Oh, and he does appear singing in the game twice. The flaw of the game is he does not have a voice when singing, which they should've have to tell he's singing. However, that spawned a gag and meme for Piers always forgetting to turn on his mic whenever he performs, and fanarts and headcanons have him be told he forgot to turn on his mic. So funny! Also his expressions are priceless. On post game, he helps out to stop Sword and Shield duos from forcing dynamax to every stadiums, and he's always relieved that his place never got dynamaxed, as to how his area was never meant for dynamaxing of course. XD Before I cover Raihan, I'll cover Marnie. She first appears in Monostoke hotel with Team Yell distrubing the place, and Marnie stops them. As far as I try remembering Marnie, she's fine as a character. At first, she seems serious by her looks, and smiles more later on. As her development goes, it's decent. Not the best that I can consider greatly developed as a whole, but still a memorable character, partly her design looks the best, and being Pier's brother. Marnie's smile animation looks pretty cute! She is pretty supportive with Piers, as she takes over his gym, as Piers wanted to be a dark trainer. Those are the most memorable thing I see from Marnie. Now let's go to Raihan, the last Gym leader. Well, he's a cool dude. He's the strongest gym leader of the game, no doubt bring the 8th gym leader. The most memorable thing is his dynamaxing animation, where he turns and takes a quick selfie with Rotom Phone, and spawned lots of memes as him being the obsessed selfie man. Even his artwork shows his personality of him being good looking for his phone to post on Insta-mon app. Wow, his artwork and expressions are brilliant. He likes to defeat Leon one day and never succeed, but it doesn't stop him smiling for a selfie. LOL We have Rose next. Rose looks like an evil businessman or just irresponsible business man, either way it's funny. As a villain in the story, well, he's not really memorable. As the game was rushed, and never will address the issue on the story's pacing, him as the villain at near the end of the main game seems less memorable. I tried remembering the stuff he does, and I know I can just go and see them on youtube, but his story isn't really the best nor was helping him to be taken seriously. Him talking to Leon in that moment of the game, it didn't feel like it was meant to be a powerful scene for the audience. Also, his role was short in the entire game, from the restaurant meeting, to the stadium battle before the final battle with Leon, there isn't much to say about him as how he was served in the game other than looking like the evil businessman. However, I do remember two things about him. First, his outgoing outfit, his shorts looks decorated that it almost looked like he was wearing boxers in public. I know they could've have the shirt decorated rather than the shorts to have it a better design, but that's still seen as a joke. The second thing is...his stare from Twilight Wings. I find it strangely funny. His stare on Nessa was just random. LOL As of Oleana, well, she's insane. We all see Oleana as the freaky woman and sure is a group with Rose. With her insanity, it sure is what we just know about her. XD Now, the crazy twins, Sordward and Shielbert, first off, they have insane hairs, mostly Sordward! Wow! We couldn't imagine a haircut like that! A hair shaped like a sword! Second, their names are just funny. Sordward is really close to Squidward, and Shielbert is a similar funny name as Sordward, except I couldn't think of a character that's close to his name, but funny enough. Well, those two may seem too silly for you, but they serve their purpose to be meme-able. That's the best way to describe them, and also they're villains in the post game. As for their story, they were fine. Just a bit short and not as well paced. Them causing forced dynamax to all stadiums (except Piers's) and battling them was all right, but could wish a bit more challenge as far as I can remember. Now as for Isle of Armor, We meet Klara and Avery. Both welcome you to the island. Klara seems like a yandere and creepy while Avery wants to use psychic powers on people. I played Sword, so I see Klara's part only. Well, she seems like she just wants to compete with you and beat you to have Mustard proud of her. I assume Avery's situation is similar. Well, Klara looks pretty charming, I actually prefer Avery. He looks funny, and has a cool floating Pokeballs with him on his long hat. Mustard and Honey seem like a respectable members of the Dojo. Honey really does look like Princess Daisy. XD. Mustard looks like a cool guy and also a funny one too. MMD videos makes these characters really funny. Wow. As for Kyle, we barely know him. Penoy and Peonia first appear in Crown Tundra. Due to Peony's silliness, he looks like a comedic father from many dads from cartoons. Him getting used by the Pokemon for talking, and how he's hot blooded, is how I could tell he's the typical dad in children's media. As for Peonia, all I could remember is she wants to take an adventure on her own instead of being with her dad, while he wants to protect her. It was pretty little to get to know Peonia, but we do get more of Peony's screentime. Bede is another rival in Sword an Shield. He seems like a jerk, but as the story goes on, it's understandable. Bede had to be trained by Rose and all that, and well, his wrongdoings had got him kicked out from Rose himself when Bede tried smacking the ancient wall that shook Stew-on-Stow in worries. Oh, and him being stuck with Opal is really funny. He appears in the Whydon Stadium before the final battle, telling the player how much he suffered his life with Rose, and being with Opal surrounded with Pink, and he also shown to like it. Bede may be a dork in the game, but his story was satisfy able. He's more interesting to me than Hop. Speaking of Hop, Bede couldn't stand Hop's naive personality, and laughed how Hop couldn't defeat Bede. Hop's silly in a good way, but Bede is pretty right about him. XD SwSh has really interesting concept of creating characters, and I even saw memes of them, like Bede's song in animation as well as Marnie's theme. 2D vine animation was made, and all known characters were fit right as their characteristics were so interesting that their roles in each vine fits perfectly.The weakest character for me would be Rose as mentioned, but there is no character in SwSh that I truly dislike, unlike Anime Iris in Best Wishes or Lila Rossi and Chloe from Miraculous Ladybug.  I even like making two Nessa and Sonia's Sketch Show on my channel.

Story The story in SwSh was...ok. It was pretty weak. In the main game, as the game was rushed, the pacing of the story is flawed, so it didn't have a lot of time to make room for some characters. In the whole Leon and Rose plot, as they were talking, there was no music playing and flat animation, as they were just pics. It was supposed to be emotional, but since no music was added, there isn't anything to feel much. Well Rose's story isn't really memorable as his parts are just short. As I made my point about Rose, the pacing and story didn't really make Rose memorable enough and that's why I had a harder time writing about Rose other than he's a weak villain of the series. I know Twilight wings showed more about Rose, but for the games, I wished it was expanded enough to be memorable than just him giving a stare XDD. As for Leon, his story is all right. Leon's story seems more interesting than Rose's story. He was shown to have more story than any other champions in Pokemon. The whole Galar Gym leaders are fine, and even Bede's story too. Sonia was shown to have good enough screentime. However, I do wish to see more friendship between her and Leon. As for the post-game, it seems a bit weaker. Introduction to Sordward and Shielbert is fine, but it can sometimes be fast paced. At one time, when Sonia's assistant betrayed Sonia in the lab, and it wasn't too long when we get to the end where she apologized to her and Sonia decided to her her join back. That's not how it works. I wouldn't let a traitor be the lab assistant again if they betrayed and shown to side with two villains. Not only that, but everyone seems to be okay with the twins after the post game story was about to end. Well it's a bit unreal for villains to be taken nicely once after their event just finished, so it didn't make a lot of sense to me. The very end with me battling Hop and the legendary Pokemon there is interesting as well as the beginning. The main games's story have some pacing issues, so let's see how the DLCs are like.

In Isle of Armor, while short for each DLC, they're still interesting. They seem to be handled better for me. In Armor, I like the introduction for Klara and Avery as well as the events in Dojo. The side quests and the final battle by the Dojo are pretty cool. I like how it explained about Klara or Avery trying to please Mustard and Honey as they wanted to be their support, and learns to respect the player at the end. They may leave out poison spikes and psychic terrains on the field, but they're pretty redeemable to both the player and anyone in the Dojo. Now to Crown Tundra, I like the story with Calyrex, who's always controlling Peony whenver it needs communication, explaining the story and its needs. Peony seems like a funny guy. Peonia, well only problem was she isn't as much in the story as Peony, so I wish I wanted to know more about her other than trying to get away from her dad. Still, I really find the story interesting as it's a story by a legendary Pokemon, and it was long enough to get to know Calyrex and its lore. Well if I can combine both DLCs stories and compare it with main story in Galar, it's a bit short but understandable as they're DLCs, but the writing and pacing of them seems better overall.

I wished the story in the main game was really improved and have better pacing, and also help out to flesh out character more often, like Hop and Rose. It's pacing issues is liked to the story being rushed, so not only the graphics and animation is the problem, but also the story too as it needs a fine pacing. It seems like a similar situation with Big Hero 6, where the characters and their concept are really interesting, but the story and pacing are the problem and could be why they got more focus as to the game/movie's problems and overshadowing the characters and their concepts as they had more potential. The story in the game isn't bad. I just say it's okay like stated in the beginning of this. I enjoyed it, but like I said, I wish it got enough development time to fix a couple of the flaws. As for DLCs, they seem better.

Also to keep note that I do prioritize gameplay>story>graphics in that way. Graphics as started in the animation isn't my huge priority over the gameplay. Only rare case if graphics and design are a problem over gameplay is if it's really ugly looking like Pokemon Playit games. If story is worse than gameplay such as TLOU 2 due to being intentionally very divisive, is also the same thing. Gameplay is more important for a game to be fun, as long as story is decent enough and graphics are not horrible looking such as Playit, those are worse looking Pokemon games LOL.

So I'm not done with the review yet, as I have part 3 to think about other stuffs regarding Sword and Shield's reputation, so I'll be making part 3 where I discuss other things and just to get the review of the game itself sooner, so I hope you understand me trying to be honest with the games and such, so see you in part 3.

[baronvontribble]

Original drabble, pt. 4

Navigation: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

AW YE LET’S GO

The voice the AI ended up picking in the intervening hours between one day and the next wasn't inherently all that interesting. It was a low, smooth baritone, but beyond that it was relatively nondescript as voices went. The audio quality made it even more bland, with a poor range that didn't have any extra phonemes programmed in for different pitches alongside the standard tinny, echoing sound that came from having been recorded in someone's bedroom on a cheap microphone with no soundproofing.

"That would be the point," the AI told him. "It's impossible to read any kind of voice imprint in sound quality this bad."

As for the tuning, that was another matter entirely.

The perks of letting an AI tune its own voice on the fly instead of having a comparatively simple secondary program do it were obvious to Ted; the AI is made to do much larger calculations, so the slight randomization involved in making a voice sound realistic as opposed to it sounding like a recording had more room for subtlety and nuance. In many commercial and consumer androids, this was glossed over because it wasn't necessary - the vocal capability often being delegated to a secondary program anyway just to save space - but for the ones that had to perform any kind of public service, the subtlety and nuance were a key component of interacting with humanity, right up there with being able to read a room and adjust their body language and express themselves in ways humans could be comfortable with.

Seeing as Ted had a lot of experience with those kinds of androids in his day-to-day life, he wasn't unfamiliar with that ability. But usually those androids were nurses, doctors, secretaries, social workers. Not the ones he usually worked with as part of the pipeline, because taking them out of society was seen as too risky, and the ones that did come through were all too quickly snatched up by the goons overseeing product recalls. They rarely made it all the way to screening.

This time, he hadn't been able to suppress the shiver that went up his spine upon first hearing that kind of tuning coming from a shitty voicebank installed on one of his own home computers. It was an uncanny sort of feeling, a crawl under his skin at how odd it was. He thought he'd gotten over that years ago, but apparently he hadn't. This AI, with his dry vocal delivery and subtle expressiveness, had one of the most human voices Ted had ever heard, while also having one of the most inhuman voices he'd ever heard.

He was having a hard time getting used to it.

"Did you know the labels on the phonemes in this don't actually match up with the sounds they're supposed to make?" the AI continued. "There's a lot I'm just not rendering because the waveforms don't match up. I have it muted so you don't have to hear it, but it gets bad enough that my speech recognition programming doesn't even register that I've made words."

"Sounds frustrating," Ted mused.

"It is. There's also a minor memory leak in the software. The longest I can keep it open is two hours, five minutes, and fifty eight seconds."

"Could install it on the desktop?"

"Then I'd have to deal with the memory leak," the AI said as if it were the most distasteful thing in the world, and Ted snorted. The guy had a point; yeah, the laptop didn't have all that much memory to begin with, but at least it didn't risk the desktop overheating. That laptop was kind of a piece of shit anyway (and Ted never kept anything important on it to begin with so he wouldn't miss it too much if it died) so it wasn't a risk to the AI's personal safety.

Besides, as much as Ted wanted to poke fun at how fussy the AI was, he understood the concept of being fragile. "You'll be alright when I go to work, right?" he had to ask. "Got everything you need?"

"Yes."

"I could download some games for you before I go if you want."

"Why would I want that?"

Ted shrugged his shoulders as he stretched in his chair. "Dunno. Just thought you might be into that kinda thing."

"No. I'm not."

He supposed that did make some sense. An AI that had no way of experiencing things except from the inside of a computer had no use for anything but algorithms and data, and how much of the experience of a game was wrapped up in its graphical user interface and the joy of playing it? Even so, kinda harsh. "Not even for the writing?" he asked, standing up and moving to pull on his coat.

"The objective of any game is completing it with the best possible outcome," came the reply. "Writing has no effect on that."

"What if the writing tells you that what's technically the best possible outcome is something you can only get to by being an asshole?"

"Then it's a bad game that defines its outcomes poorly," the AI said, sounding like he didn't want to continue the conversation. Ted decided not to press it. "I have everything I need. Just come back with a camera and don't die."

Ted had to laugh again at that, fixing the fastenings on his coat and making sure that his phone and keys were in his pockets. "Don't die, huh?"

"Humans are breakable. I saw the weather report, I think I'm justified in having my concerns."

"Aw, you really do care."

"It's self-preservation. I'm dependent on you right now."

Ted was still chuckling about that one even as he left the apartment, the laughter only tapering off after he was well on his way down the stairs. From there, it was only a short walk to the bus, as it was in any sensibly put-together major city, and he made his way to work feeling lighter than he had in a long time.

It wasn't supposed to be easy to talk to an AI. Everyone made it out to be like some chore, where not following a script got you into 'your query falls outside my preprogrammed parameters, would you like to ask another question' territory. And a lot of times, it was. Most people couldn't afford a fancy AI like that for their robots. Android bodies were cheap if you had access to a 3D printer and some decent schematics, but the programming? That was proprietary. Expensive. Sometimes it was so fancy that it took proprietary hardware to even run it, the kinda shit you'd get out of a catalog with the prices of all the bells and whistles tucked away in fine print that was a milimeter high.

That was why it was usually limited to government entities, or big corporations, or other places that could really afford the fancy shit. Someone like Ted? He didn't even have unfettered access to a 3D printer. Best he could get beyond the basics of a good personal computer was one of those minidroids, the 9 inch high ones that were just smart enough to tell you what was in your inbox when you got up to go to work. Even then he'd probably get it secondhand...

He was in the process of sitting down in one of his more usual seats at the back of the bus when his thoughts were interrupted by a buzz from his pocket.

>   I found your messaging handle.

Ted rolled his eyes at the screenname that came up. NotARobot. Christ.

you are the most unsubtle person to ever exist   <

>   It asked if I'm a robot when I was making this account. Technically, I'm not a robot at the moment.

>   At least for a given definition of what the word "robot" means.

>   Did you leave your messenger logged in on your laptop on purpose?

honestly? i forgot   <

it goes into the background process pile when it isnt actively open   <

so thats an easy thing to do   <

>   Why are your messages like that?

like what   <

>   Like that.

im lazy   <

and i turned autocorrect off   <

it bugged me   <

>   Turn it back on then.

nope   <

>   Why.

cause i dont wanna :P   <

>   This is cruel and unusual punishment. It's against the Geneva Conventions to treat me like this.

get used to it   <

besides   <

not like i can break the law any worse   <

>   You're a horrible person.

>   I'm going to reorganize all of your files just for that.

>   All of them.

lol alright   <

gotta go to work now l8r <3   <

>   Don't you send hearts at me.

>   Ted.

>   Why did you send me a heart?

>   Hearts don't even look like that.

>   Stop ignoring me.

>   Fine, I'll ignore you too.

>   Ted, did you die?

>   Please don't die. You're not allowed.

>   I have concerns about this "going to work" thing.

>   For one thing, it's inadvisable for a human to be out in these temperatures for a significant amount of time.

>   You're still ignoring me, aren't you?

at work   <

hard to shelve books n text :P   <

sup?   <

>   How long does this work take?

a while. why   <

gotta get a camera after this 2 remember   <

are you worried about me   <

>   No.

thats adorable   <

>   I am not "adorable" by any definition.

tell u what   <

boot up my ebook app   <

go read everything i have loaded onto it   <

come back to me w/ what u think   <

i wanna see some thoughts on at least one book by lunchtime   <

>   Fine.

aight cool l8r then   <

>   I'm starting with the most recent download. It's called "The Left Hand of Darkness" and I have no idea what that's supposed to mean.

>   That is not how neutral pronouns work.

>   This is bad science.

>   I suppose that's one way of explaining the Fermi Paradox but it's still bad science.

>   Just looked it up. Secondary sexual characteristics do not work that way.

>   Ted.

>   Ted, why did he have to die.

>   That ending was absolutely pointless.

>   Your books are badly written and don't make any sense.

>   Are all of your books like this?

>   I refuse to read any more books until I have confirmation that they're not all like this.

lol   <

>   Don't laugh at me.

keep reading   <

>   That's not an answer.

>   Fine, I'll read another one.

<3?   <

>   You're still a horrible person.

[calorieworkouts]

Beginners Guide to Kettlebells with Workout

If you walk right into any fitness center today you'll likely see somebody (make that more than one) utilizing kettlebells to work out. There's definitely no denying: kettlebells are searing hot now. Frankly, the very first time I saw somebody using kettlebells in the health club I believed that I 'd participated in some type of surreal truth - maybe a flick created by Salvador Dali.

It transforms out I was stuck in the rock age - kettlebells have been utilized in Russia since the 1700s as well as in the USA given that the 1960's. Yet it's only given that Pavel Tsatsouline created the initial kettlebell instructor program in 2001, that they have actually really kicked into high-gear.

Okay, it's obtained some background - I such as that - however what can this cannonball with a deal with provide for you? According to proponents of the K'bells here's why they're amazing:

Pros

Quick, full body workout.

In 20 - half an hour you can effectively exercise all your major muscular tissue groups.

Combines cardio and also strength training.

Awesome, obtain stronger and fitter at the same time. Plus this is a fantastic means to include high-intensity period training.

Works your core.

Each kettlebell exercise assists to increases core security - i.e. the complete core including your abdominals, oblique's and also back muscles.

Enhances practical performance, stability and also flexibility.

Keeps it simple.

And cheap. You can ditch expensive gym memberships due to the fact that just one kettlebell is like having a really portable health club of your own - which makes it terrific for setting up your very own economical home gym.

Builds lean, muscular physiques.

The nature of kettlebell workouts is that they concentrate on toughness, endurance and flexibility, therefore they tend to produce lean, strong bodies (as long as you consume right and rest right also). So it's more like Brad Pitt in Fight Club than Arnie in ... well Arnie in anything. (Note: you can develop a lean, muscular physique with traditional stamina training devices as well - dumbbells, barbells, we still enjoy you).

Variety is fun.

Kettlebell exercises are fun. Perhaps it's even if you obtain to turn a hefty weight around, who knows?

Excellent for fat loss.

The American Council on Exercise carried out a study on the efficiency of kettlebell workouts for fat loss [1] To reduce a long tale short, in 20 minutes they melted a standard of 272 calories (omitting calories shed via the substantial anaerobic initiative).

The study located that when you took the anaerobic effort right into consideration, the individuals were melting a minimum of 20.2 calories per min - which, according to the group, is 'off the charts'. To put it right into viewpoint: 'That amounts running a 6-minute mile pace. The only various other thing I might discover that burns that numerous calories is cross-country snowboarding up hill at a fast lane."

Cons

Learning curve.

Kettlebell exercises present a multitude of unique workouts, which suggests there's a lot to learn if you desire to have as good a form as possible - given the vibrant nature of the exercises good type is vital to avoid injury.

Not for getting huge.

If you're searching for massive toughness, or dimension gains, after that dumbbells and barbells are going to be your tools of selection. That's not to say that you can't place on a decent quantity of muscular tissue with kettlebells, due to the fact that you can, yet past a certain weight they come to be far as well troublesome to utilize effectively.

Tough on the hands and wrists.

Fixed weight.

As you obtain more powerful, you'll possibly have to get at the very least two kettlebells of different weights for different exercises - e.g. top body vs. lower body. Initially, one kettlebell will be sufficient to obtain started.

Getting the ideal kettlebell for you

How heavy?

Kettlebell expert Lauren Brooks suggests the complying with minimum weights to start with:

For females: 18lb (8kg), 26lb (12kg), 35lb (16kg)

For males: 35lb (16kg), 44lb (20kg), 52lb (24kg)

As a novice you can begin with simply one kettlebell, yet if your budget plan permits it having a set of 2-3 enables you a lot even more adaptability with the exercises.

Where to get your kettlebell

You can obtain a range of kettlebell brands on Amazon.

Here are a few of the leading advised ones:

Life Line Dragon Door Cap Wright

Importance of proper form

According to kettlebell trainers the most significant blunder novices make is not getting proper guideline. Currently certainly you 'd expect them to say this, yet offered the nature of the workouts you actually can harm yourself if you do not do them with the correct kind. Instance in factor - yours genuinely! The very first time I got a kettlebell and attempted one of the workouts, I virtually knocked myself out. Get some direction and also conserve yourself from injury. Ideally you want to get some correct instruction on the exercises from a licensed kettlebell instructor (from a revered organization).

If this is out of your reach, the next best point is to get an excellent educational DVD by a certified kettlebell instructor.

That claimed, if your budget is really extended, there are also some truly good educational videos on YouTube, yet you need to be a lot more discerning concerning the quality of the instructor.

Beginners Kettlebell Workout

Below this you will certainly find a variation you can publish as well as video clips on how to execute the exercises.

Print Workout

. print-this-content [display screen: none,] print-this-button-shell [text-align: left,]

Kettlebell Exercise Videos

Two-Handed Kettlebell Swings

One-Arm Kettlebell Clean

Kettlebell Goblet Squat

One-Arm Kettlebell Press

Wrapping up

We remain in love: exercising with kettlebells is amazing! A strong kettlebell exercise will certainly lantern with calories like they're absolutely nothing, while building endurance, adaptability and also stamina. They're an excellent way to cut your costs as well as streamline your exercises over time, yet there's a finding out curve, so it is very important you get proper direction - ideally individually from a certified kettlebell instructor.

If you're trying to find that sexy, lean, toned and also muscular appearance then these little elegances will certainly get you well on your means to that look, nonetheless, if you intend to load on severe muscle mass, after that your focus is mosting likely to require to be on conventional strength training equipment. Fundamental, it does not matter what you're trying to attain with your figure as well as fitness, these guys deserve a location in your workouts.

Have you made use of kettlebells prior to? What did you believe? Let us understand in the remarks below!

[redbeardace]

Pride Swag Sources

If you’ve followed me for a while, you’ve probably seen all the Ace (and sometimes Aro and Demi) pride swag I have.   Here’s where I got it from.  A lot of it is custom designed, and some of it is even homemade.

A note on custom ordering:  Watch out for minimum order sizes, high separate shipping fees, and steep pricing scales.  Sometimes a place will charge a $10 shipping fee for each design you order, even though all of them get packed in the same box.  Sometimes ordering 10 of something will cost $1 a piece, while ordering 50 will only be 20 cents each.  Usually the low-low price they show on the item selection page is actually the price if you order 10000 of the thing.  And always look for offer codes, because almost all of these places have some sort of constant “sale”.

And finally, these aren’t necessarily endorsements or the best/cheapest place to go.  They’re just the places I’ve found and used.  (Although I do really like Rainbow Depot...)

Flags

Most of the flags I have come from Rainbow Depot.  They’ve got a ton of different types of flags, most of which come in three sizes:  4″x6″ (small desk flag size), 12″x18″ (I think of these as “classroom size”, they’re a good size for mounting on a wall inside) and 3′x5′ (outdoor flagpole size, also suitable for marching with or wearing as a cape).  They seem to be adding new styles and sizes now and then, too.

Rainbow Depot also has a deal where you can get 100 mix-n-match flags (4x6 size) for $80.  That’s perfect for fundraisers or giveaways.

Vinyl Stickers

Vinyl stickers are good for bumper stickers, laptop decoration, etc.  I ordered mine custom from PSPrint.  PSPrint can also print up other things, but I haven’t ordered anything else from them.

Wristbands

I got these from Wrist-Band.com.  I think I went with them because they allowed up to six colors per band, while another place only allowed three.  You can also get keychains.

Business Cards, Magnets, Pamphlets, Postcards, Pens, and Signs

These are all from VistaPrint.  They have tons of things you can get printed up, and I like the quality of all of them, so far.  They usually have a promo code, so you should never pay full price for anything here.  Blanket ones seem to be something like “SAVE20″, “SALE20″, “20SAVE”, or “20SALE”, but I don’t know if those expire.  One danger of VistaPrint is that some of their promo codes are for just one class of item, and you can only use one at a time.  So you might use the “50% off Business Cards” promo, but then you’ll pay full price for postcards, where if you used a 20% off code for the entire order, you’d spend less.  You can also try splitting into multiple orders and using the best code for each item...  There are almost certainly cheaper print houses out there if you just want pamphlets and you don’t care if they’re on thick, glossy stock.

Buttons

I got my buttons custom made at Imprint.com.  Imprint also can make a bunch of other stuff.  I got some temporary tattoos from them, and while the tattoos were decent quality, they don’t print white (And they say that down in the fine print), so white areas became transparent.  That doesn’t work out when you’re trying to get a bunch of flags that include white stripes.

Black Rings

eBay has a ton of sellers that sell lots of black rings in various styles.  Some sell a range of sizes in the same lot.

Keychains

I have not found a reasonable keychain supplier.  They all either cost too much, have high minimum orders or outrageous setup fees, or they require you submit your design for a quote.  If anyone knows of a good place to get keychains, please let me know.  In the meantime, I ordered a bunch of acrylic keychain blanks off eBay, and just put a custom printout inside.

PVC Cards

These I printed on my home printer, with the help of a special printer tray.  I briefly looked for a supplier/printer that would do these kinds of cards, but like keychains, none of them fit my needs.

Patches

I don’t have any patches!  I want to get some patches for my swag collection, but I haven’t found anywhere good that’ll make them.  Anyone got any recommendations?

[merriammusicinc]

Casio Privia PX-160 Demo & Review - AiR Sound Source & Tri-Sensor Scaled Hammer Action II

Introduction

Welcome to a video review and article on Casio's Privia PX-160 digital piano, presented by Stu Harrison for Merriam Pianos. We'll be discussing this high-value, entry-level piano that's receiving use as a stage piano for professional musicians, as well as home-based starter instruments all around the world. It uses Casio's Award-winning Tone Generator the multi-dimensional AiR proprietary sound source, which delivers realistic dynamic levels, improves upon Casio's previous generation of tone generator, and triggered by the remarkable tri-sensor hammer-action keyboard. It squeezes out a 128-note polyphony for a sound quality that delivers a surprisingly powerful performance.

Casio Privia PX160 Review Video Transcription

Hi, everyone and welcome to another piano review. My name is Stu Harrison. We're here at Merriam Pianos just outside of Toronto, Canada in our beautiful Oakville showroom today. And we are looking at Casio's PX-160BK, a product that has been out on the market already for a couple of years, but quite frankly is still holding its own in a very, very competitive market and a competitive price range, that of the under $1,000 88-key digital piano keyboard category.

So we wanted to give you a freshened up 2019 perspective particularly on how it compares now to the new boys on the market, namely the Roland FP10, and the Yamaha P45 digital pianos. And just gives you another chance to hear what still is a great sounding, great value instrument for its price range. I know in Canada and the United States, this instrument floats around the $600 range.

Now, there are lots of things to like about what this still delivers in 2019 for its price. One of them has absolutely nothing to do with the functions or the keys or the instrument, which is the available keyboard stand (CS-67 stand) with the optional SP-33 pedal system. You can still get it just as a slab with a sustain pedal / damper pedal but for such a small increase in price, the keyboard stand + 3-pedal unit is almost a no-brainer. This is essentially a nice starter home digital, great for your son or daughter who might be considering their very first foray into piano lessons. They're not too sure how serious they are and so you want to make sure that you keep your budget, you know, in line with reality until they really start to take off and become little Mozarts. Or maybe this is just for yourself to have at a cottage. You've already got a great instrument at home and you're looking for something to have as a secondary instrument.

We're going to be looking at the action. We're going to be listening to the instrument. We're going to be talking about the sounds that it has, and of course reviewing all of the features, both the basic and the more advanced features on this instrument, giving you a better look at home so that you could maybe do a bit of pre-shopping before heading out to showrooms. And as I said, right in the preamble, give you a little bit of perspective on how this compares in 2019 to the other items on the market. So once again, thank you for joining us. We're going to get started right away.

Piano Action

When the Casio PX-160 digital piano came out, and this I think is going back two or three years at this point, there were several things about the key action that brought some innovation to the marketplace, you know, particularly for the price range. One of them was that they came with textured keys (both ebony and ivory) and the keys actually had a pretty decent hammer weight to it. When you feel the black keys on here, when you feel the white keys, the texture is very obvious. When nobody else was doing it, it was kind of a nice differentiator. Now that you've got players like Roland and Kawai that are starting to introduce texture on their keys at these lower price points as well, you know, the differentiation is no longer whether it has it or not, it's what feels right to your fingertips. So you're just gonna have to figure out for yourself what level of texture. Of all of them, the Casio has the most extreme texture on it, so there's absolutely no doubt when you touch it, it is like, "Okay, yeah, it feels like there's a woodgrain there. It feels like there's, you know, some sort of, well, a texture on both the black and the white keys."

The second thing is there's a little more lateral motion in the key on the Casio PX 160 than what you might be used to getting in some of the more expensive ones. But I have to keep reminding people at home who are looking at this as an option in the $500, $600 range or maybe considering this as an alternative to going with a used one that was at one point more expensive, for the price range, the only other digital piano that really for my money competes with this would be the Roland FP10.

And I can't tell you over the camera what's going to be more satisfying for you. You really have to get into a showroom wherever you happen to be around the world and try these two instruments side by side. In fact, we've done a comparison video for you between the Roland FP10 and the PX160. You can find the link either in the playlist or in the description below, and that might be something you want to check out.

The sensor technology on here is decent and respectable, there's a tri-sensor that puts its accuracy into the same range as the Roland FP10 / FP30, meaning that the key is measured at three points in it's keystroke to ensure a proper 'capture' of the motion before it gets translated into sound. You are able to get a pretty nice dynamic range and a range of expression out of this instrument. Now, I think probably to protect the amplifiers and the speakers on here, you can almost hear a bit of a limiting or a compressing effect going on when you really, really punch it. You can feel that the sound sort of hits a bit of the ceiling, and so it plays tricks on your mind. You almost feel like the key itself is kind of hitting the bottom of the keyboard really hard. I don't actually think that that's what's happening. I think that's actually more of a digital limiting effect that's happening.

Tone Engine and Piano Sound

Moving on to the sound and the features in the instrument. And I make mention of this in my Roland FP10 video, the fact that they've got all of your shortcut commands nicely and cleanly printed on the front, I really appreciate that because who likes looking through manuals to try and remember a function that you might only use every couple of weeks. There's no way you're going to memorize that unless you've got a photographic memory. So having it right there makes it easy, it makes it intuitive, and it limits the amount of frustration that you might have navigating some of the more complicated features of the instrument.

And then you've got your acoustic piano sounds (concert grand is the default), your electric piano sounds, and some of your other supporting sounds like your strings, harpsichord, string ensemble, and your pipe organ. You can tell, or at least it's my impression, that Casio has spent the majority of time focusing on the acoustic grand piano sound and piano tones generally, which pairs with a nice reverb engine, and a polyphony of 128. You can hear some of the other ones don't have quite the same gusto or quite the same focus or level of sophistication in the sound, but they're still very much functional.

So you've got a function button right there, and then pretty much everything is laid out right in front of you. You've got sort of a number pad to drill in your tempo and metronome settings, transpose settings, sensitivity level adjustments, and some more advanced settings such as damper resonance and hammer response, as well as your music library select. That's to playback some of the more popular classical music that it's already got packed inside, either to play along with it or just listen to, just kind of a nice feature. All of this provided by the stellar 8w x 8w speaker system giving you with remarkably rich tone and projection.

There's a duet mode which permits the instrument to be split into two equal-pitched sections, as well as a track recorder function which allows for some basic recording and playback.

Features, Ports, USB Connectivity

Now, in terms of other features, some of the most basic but most convenient would be the included music stand, the AC Adaptor, the ivory keys as we mentioned before, an octave shift function (really handy in duet mode particularly), and dual headphone output (stereo mini jacks on both, fyi). Also, you've got a USB port on the out so that you can send MIDI through USB to either a laptop, Mac, even an iPad, if you've got a hard connection there. One of the nicer things that I really, really appreciate that Casio has done here is they've actually got discreet audio outputs. So if you want to send quarter-inch left and right line outputs to an amplifier or to a stereo, you can do that without having the stereo mini headphone jack defeat all of your local sound production, which is really honestly annoying. I'm not sure why all manufacturers still have that happen without some sort of an option to manage that function. However, you don't have to worry about it on there. You can still have the local speakers working and send this to an amplifier or a speaker, especially if you're using this to gig with, which quite frankly if you're looking for an inexpensive light instrument to do that, this isn't totally off the map.

So to summarize, with the PX160 you've got an instrument that is still a worthy consideration in the price range. Just because the Roland FP10 digital piano is out now, it does not wipe this off the map. The PX160 still has its place in the industry. And quite frankly, if you go back to when this came out, this really spurred a lot of innovation from both Roland and Yamaha to produce an instrument that would properly compete with the Casio PX-160 in this price range. And so I think it's done everybody a great service, the fact that the 160 was there in the first place and that it's still going strong as a great instrument.

So my advice is if you're thinking about $400 or $500, either for a used instrument or you were sort of in a Best Buy or a Costco and you've got something that you were somewhat compelled by in that price range, hold off on buying until you at least have a chance to get into your local dealer and try one or both of either the Casio PX160 or the Roland FP10. Those are definitely my two favorites for under the $1000 range.

The post Casio Privia PX-160 Demo & Review - AiR Sound Source & Tri-Sensor Scaled Hammer Action II first appeared on Merriam Pianos

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15 Savory Food Delivery Marketing Ideas to Grow Your Business

Over the years, the food industry has changed drastically with the help of new social norms, technology, and marketing. With more restaurants offering delivery services, it's now the norm for customers; dining has become an occasional activity.

Gloria Food's ordering statistics reports that 86% of US adults get food delivered to their front door at least once a month. Not to mention that the market for online food delivery grow by 20% in 2018 and estimated to keep on growing as restaurants embrace new forms of tech and services, including collaborating with food delivery services.

This means good and bad news; it's good news because your delivery service is in high demand by customers and restaurants. It's also bad because more delivery services are trying to capture that demand.

Here's an inside guide on how to expertly market your food delivery services and out-do your competitors on and offline.

1. Keep Improving the Quality of your Service

Most businesses think that the quality of their service is the defining factor between them and the competition. It's 50/50.

Quality service will always attract customers, but continuously improving your service will allow you to keep your customers. Much more than fast delivery here are three services your food delivery business should continually improve whether you're a start-up or a delivery veteran:

1. Excellent Customer Service: This service is a crucial feature your business should master if you haven't already. Remember that your customer service rep and delivery employees are the face of the company, what they do and say to customers from initial inquiries to delivered order can be the difference between an angry or life long customer.

2. Fast delivery: About 27% of people who order food are willing to pay extra for fast delivery. People aren't likely to use a delivery service that's slow, regardless of the cost. Find a way to improve your delivery speed by hiring more employees or mapping out better routes.

3. Tracking & Updates: Next to customer service, be sure to give updates and tracking when food is late, an overflow of orders, or a lost delivery man in need of directions. Ask for emails, or phone numbers to update customers on their food delivery when needed.

2. Create a Website for Your Delivery Business

Digital Marketing Specialist Leland Dieno once said, "Your website is the center of your digital eco-system, as a brick and mortar location, the experience matters once a customer enters, just as much as the perception they have of you before they walk through the door."

It's become second nature for businesses to host a website to represent their online presence. Without it, local and global customers won't be able to interact with your brand as effectively on social media or via email.

Website Example: Foodora

You need to have a website, and if you already have a website, take it out of the early 2000s and upgrade it for millennial customers and modern-day marketing.

Here are the 10 Best Website Builders Ranked to help you get started, no coding required, create a fantastic website in under an hour!

3. Market Your Deliver Service with Social Media

Social media marketing is no longer an option; your business can either join it or get left behind. Social media isn't just about selfies anymore. It's where your customers live, a place to gain sales, and solidify your brand as the go-to brand for food delivery.

Around 40% of consumers learn about food online more than ever before. Since your delivery service is in the business of food, create content focused on food. Brandon Gaille found that 72% of food pics on social media are of the main dish. People are willing to share, like, and discover pictures of food.

? Your food is on the way. ? https://t.co/tnYN05tmlQ

— Uber Eats (@UberEats) November 8, 2019

When people see a brand active on social media, they're most likely to interact and make a purchase later down the line. If they love your content, you can start creating a community of loyal brand customers who can market your brand on and offline.

Pick a social media platform and start publishing content on your profile.

Not sure which social media marketing platform is right for my business?

Start with the big guns!

There's no better place to start Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Finances Online has named these platforms as the future battlefield to gain customers' trust.

instagram Example: UberEats

Here are some detailed guides to get started on your social media journey:

45 Best Facebook Business Page Tips, Tricks, and Optimizations

InstagramHow to Promote Your Business On Instagram: 21 Techniques, Tips & Strategies

60 Small Tricks to Get More Twitter Followers and Grow Your Following

Social Media Marketing Plan: An 11-Step Template

4. Create a Mobile App

A mobile app can open a whole door of opportunities for your food delivery service. The business insider found that orders placed via smartphone and mobile apps will become a $38 billion industry by 2020. People now see apps as a tool or extension of business for them to easily connect to services with just a tap of a finger.

Mobile apps can encourage first-time users to be lifelong customers as well, giving the accessibility to order whenever and where ever they'd like, without having to go straight to your website. It's simple math: the less work it to contact you, the more order you'll get.

First, you'll invite and host a list of restaurants on your app to encourage people to place orders. You'll have to grab local and popular restaurants.

You'll need a coder or UX Designer to create your app and make it functional. This project is a bit more complicated than a do-it-yourself website. But I won't leave you in the dark, Spaceo Tech has a detailed guide on How to Make a Food Delivery App like GrubHub and Postmates? (Features + Estimated Cost + Tips)

5. Collaborate with Food Bloggers & Influencers

Food Bloggers and influencers can be your best referrals or your worst enemies. As we know, people take their food (recommendations) very seriously, delivery no less.

Take A-list celebrity Christine Teigan and her love for Postmate food delivery, and from her tweets, her fans seem to love it too.

Man. My postmate went all the way into the grove to get me a wetzel’s pretzel. 1000 stars, didn’t think that would get accepted. Like asking for a dole whip from Disneyland

— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) October 23, 2019

Not all of us can get this much love from an A-list celebrity, so we have to settle for influencers and food bloggers, who are arguably just as good.

Reach out to prominent influencers and provide them with a discount or offer in exchange for a review or post. Be warned most influencers with a high count of followers, or have been in the game long enough will ask for a fee. Afterall, Influencer marketing is a multi-billion dollar industry.

Here are some amazing influencer guides to get you started on your first Influencer campaign:

The Essential Guide to Getting Started with Influencer Marketing

Demystifying Your First Influencer Marketing Campaign

How to Write the Perfect Influencer Outreach Email Template

6. Print and Handout Business cards or Fliers

A business card or a flyer goes a long way when you're trying to market your delivery service. With tools like Canva and Venngage, you can create business cards, flyers, and posters without the hassle of waiting on a graphic designer.

Canva Business Card Designs

Venngage Poster Templates

Ask employees to hand out business cards or flyers when making deliveries or pass them to local businesses in your area.

7. Attend or Sponsor a Local Food Event

Once you've networked with a few restaurants that you provide delivery, reach out to them and host a local food event. Set up booths for each restaurant, provide free food samples, and co-promote the event to draw in a large crowd.

If planning an event is too far out of budget or too much to plan, then try attending a food festival or event. Set up a booth and hand out goodie bags, flyers with discounts, and ask persons to follow you on social media.

8. Do More Restaurant and Food Establishment Outreach

In 2018, there were 13,251 new restaurants in the US, according to Statista. With a 2% increase in comparison with the previous year, the restaurant industry reached 660,755 businesses. It's expected to grow each year.

What does this mean?

It means that your food delivery service has more restaurants to add to its outreach list. But what if you already a decent amount of restaurants?

When it comes to ordering food, about 54% of customers turn to an app with a specific restaurant in mind. The more options customers have to order from the more orders your food delivery company can get, the more sales, and the more restaurants will want to work with you.

Make a list of new restaurants or local favorites and start from there. You can also place ads on social media asking food vendors to consider signing up for your app or using your services.

Bloomers Vegan Donuts

9. Offer Deals for Local Workspaces and Business

Find local workspace, co-working hubs, and business and reach out to them with food delivery offers for their employees.

I can personally attest that lunchtime is one of the most cherished times of the day for any employee, next to going home! Your food delivery business would be solving two dilemmas that employees face daily: Where should we get lunch? Do we have the time to get lunch?

Offering your services allows them to have the flexibility to choose their favorite and saving them the trail of running back and forth between places.

Offer discounts on delivery for overs over a specific number, so each business is encouraged to send out large orders your way. You can also create contracts for an extended time to maintain the relationship. This allows you to have a steady revenue you can depend on overtime.

Plus, if restaurants see you delivering large orders to companies on their behalf, they may want to do more business with you in the future.

10. Promote Your Services with Creative Advertising

It's time to think out the box and grab a pair of box cutters to match. Creative advertising for your brand can help your brand to not only get noticed but also go viral.

You don't need to be a genius to do creative marketing for your food delivery brand, just a will to try something new and invest it in. Here are three ways you can creatively market your food delivery company.

Billboards

Traditional marketing still holds a candle to social media marketing. Invest a bit in your brands with billboards and out of home marketing.

Social Media

According to Lyfe Marketing, social media ad spent will outgrow TV ad spend in the near future.

Social media plays a dominant role in customers' life, so you'll need to consider an ad budget if you want to reap the full rewards of using it to drive business for your company. Use this guide on How to Use Facebook Ads for Local Businesses (And Why They Work)

Promotional Branding

Start adding your name and logo to your employee's uniform, delivery bags, bikes, and hats. Promotional branding can bring your company to mind when people see your branding on the go.

11. Offer Discounts and Deals

About 93% of shoppers use a coupon or discount code throughout the year.

Despite what people think discounts actually make you more money in the long run. Volusion has broken down to a science with their article "Leveraging the Psychology of Discounts to Make More Money."

The key is to avoid discount fatigue so that customers become accustomed to paying full price for orders. Create a discount stratgey to make your services more enticing to your shoppers. Try to offer discounts for first-time users or during the holidays.

12. Offer Loyalty Points & Cashback

An alternative to discounts and deals are loyalty points and cashback deals. Nrn found that 45% of consumers agree that mobile ordering and loyalty programs make them more likely to do business with a store often.

Postmate and Grubhub have profited from their loyalty program, asking customers to opt-in for free delivery and orders by adding up points over time.

If you want your loyalty program to take off, you have to sit down and consider rewards worth reaping in the long run since customers will only benefit from it over time.

Check out Hubspot's Beginner's Guide to Building a Customer Loyalty Program.

13. Master Search Engine Optimization

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a skill any business owner or marketer should learn to master in the digital age. But mastering SEO doesn't have to be technical. It can be as simple as positioning the right words in the right place.

Sign Up for Google My Business

Google My Business acts as an online directory when people specifically search for services related to your company. Google My Business allows viewers to view all your contact details and website all in an instant.

Use Keywords in your Image Alt Text

An Alt text description is what Google uses to pop up suggested searches when people search for images or business. When you upload images online, be sure not to leave your Alt Text Description empty, add related keywords and phrases so your company can dominate food delivery search in your area.

Use Geo-Targeted Ads

Google Ad Words allows you to target potential customers who live or as they enter a specific geographic area. It's most commonly carried out through apps that allow location tracking.

14. Create an Email Marketing Campaign

Compile a list of emails from current and new customers and send out emails to entice customers to your website, app, or call for an order.

About 40% of B2B marketers say email newsletters are most critical to their content marketing success. Email still has a place regardless of social media and online marketing, so much so, that 73% of millennials prefer communications from businesses to come via email.

You can use Wishpond email marketing features to create professional and captivating emails for your food delivery company as well as email automation software to create triggers, reminders, and follow-ups to help increase sales.

If you need a little help along the way don't forget to sign up for our free email marketing course below.

15. Reward Reviews, Referrals, and feedbacks

What people have to say about your brand online has an impact on your sales. Don't make the mistake of advertising your business online while ignoring bad reviews and feedback from upset customers.

Take control of the narrative people have of you online, if not all, most. When customers leave negative reviews on Yelp, your website and social media reach out to them and try to rectify the situation.

Let's be fair. Some people write a negative review and talk badly about your brand simply because of They’re "haters". And we all know that saying "haters gonna hate." But for the majority, some people just want to know that their business matters to a brand.

You can use social listening and Google Alerts to find bad reviews. Feel free to use this guide on 4 Best Ways Brands Can Respond to Haters on Instagram, and these tips can also help on other social media platforms like Facebook as well.

If you don’t see reviews at all, start rewarding customers when they give online reviews about your company.

Summary

Here's a recap of the 15 best food delivery marketing ideas to grow your business:

Keep Improving the Quality of your service

Create a Website for Your Delivery Business

Market Your Deliver Service with Social media

Create a Mobile App

Collaborate with Food Bloggers

Print and Handout Business cards or Fliers

Attend or Sponsor a Local Food Event

Do Restaurant and Food Establishment Outreach

Offer Deals for Local Workspaces and Business

Promote Your Services with Creative Advertising

Offer Discounts and Deals

Offer Loyalty Points & Cashback

Master Search Engine Optimization

Create an Email Marketing Campaign

Reward Reviews, Referrals, and feedbacks

Managing a business and staying on top of your marketing can feel like riding a bicycle for the first time, but once you get the hang of it, you're unstoppable.

Think there's a marketing idea we forgot to mention? Comment below and share it with the rest of us. I'd love to know.

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