Movie Time

I like to watch movies. I’ve been watching movies for as long as I can remember. They can take you to an entirely different world. You can watch things that you had never even imagined. I don’t buy movies as often as I would like. My girlfriend asked me if I wanted any movies for Christmas this year. I gave her a short list of some of my favorite movies, so maybe I’ll have a few more to add to my collection. Some of favorite movies are Saving Private Ryan, Pacific Rim, and the Fountain.  I love movies that make me think, movies that are more than just action. I want a good story.  I want something entertaining and something that I can talk about after I watch it. I want something to discuss. Movies that shock me a little bit are also always interesting. I want to feel something when I watch a movie. My girlfriend and I don’t always see eye to eye on movies. She loves horror movies, watches them all the time. It drives me nuts. I think horror movies are the worst kind of movies that there can be. They, generally, have no real plot. They just aren’t good entertainment to me. I think that they always try too hard and the acting isn’t very good. I never ask questions after watching a horror movie. There is never anything to make me think. I’m really looking forward to seeing the Martian. I hope that it’s as good as I think it is going to be. Interstellar was a really good movie too. I like space movies. Star Wars at the end of the year, that’s going to be a big deal. I have very high hopes for it. I don’t want to admit that I’m a little bit nervous about it. 

Football Games Are For Football

So, Cassville and Mt. Vernon, two towns near Monett, both had prayer before their football games respectively over the speakers, right before the national anthem. I'm not okay with that. If I was a parent to a student in either of those systems, someone, probably a few people, would be getting an earful. You cannot do that. I don't care what religion you are. You are representing ALL of your students and your community, not to mention you are a government funded entity which makes it illegal. I'm tired of people, obviously Christians are more prominent in our area (not picking on just Christianity), pushing their religions on others. I'm not gonna lie and say it didn't make me uncomfortable. I'm also not saying I can't handle it, but that doesn't mean it's okay. If you want to pray, by all means do so, but don't do it in a setting where others are forced to be involved.

Vidja Games

I love video games, probably more than I love movies. I have always played video games. I used to play them with my dad when I was a little kid. He would always beat me. When my brothers were old enough, I played with them. I would always beat them. It’s just kind of been a family thing. It was something that we would always do together, even if we weren’t all playing. My dad would play and we would sit and watch. We would pass the controller around the room, each playing a round or two, before passing it to the next person. It’s something that my girlfriend and I do together as well. It just gives me a sense of comfort. I will always want to play video games. I want the newest system and the newest games. Don’t get me wrong, though, I still have my original Xbox. My girlfriend and I combined have a Nintendo 64, a Gamecube, a Wii, a Playstation 2, an Xbox, an Xbox 360, and an Xbox One. She wants to get a WiiU. I’ve never been a big fan of Nintendo. I like them, but I’m definitely an Xbox person. I am a huge fan of Halo. I own all the games. I have some collectible statues.  I’ve even contemplated getting a Halo tattoo. People say that I’m a Halo fanboy, and I am absolutely okay with that. The newest installment of Halo comes out on the 27^th of October. I absolutely cannot wait. I’ve always preordered the game and gone to pick them up at the midnight releases. I’ve met some great friends playing Halo online. I hope that when I have kids, they will share my love of video games, especially Halo. It would be cool to play with my son or my daughter. 

Cerberus Crafts: The Reward

All set up, soaked and cold, our first booth ever was officially up and running. The rain finally let up but it was still pretty dreary. Not exactly pristine fair weather. The first of the three day venture was the worst, and understandably slow. Mt. Vernon gets out of school for the first day every year, but everyone else is occupied, be it a job or school elsewhere. When added to the weather it makes for a pretty small turn out, at least compared to expectations.

Preparing for Apple Butter Makin' Days was interesting. I thought that I had a decent idea of what would sell and what wouldn't. Boy, was I wrong. I had expected there to be a vast interest in sports woodburnings with our nerdy pieces catering to the specific crowd. I quickly discovered that 1. there are nerds everywhere. A lot of them. And 2. People are easily attracted to items that are unique in a crowd full of wood products. We were definitely not prepared for the reaction we received for our Perler pieces.

We had brought some of our beads to work on custom ordered pieces here and there, not really expecting much of a response. Next thing we know, we are taking orders in and rushing them out. It was absolute madness. A madness we were not exactly prepared for, but certainly welcomed. All of our beads found their way to our booth after realizing that we needed all of them and then some.

Kids loved us. Parents of the kids that loved us hated us. We were just big kids doing what we loved and it worked for us. It worked extremely well for us. So well in fact, that we ended the three day span with an award for Best Youth Vendor. We won an award for our first booth ever. Holy crap! The experience of our first booth will be tested again at this year's ABMD, and I can't wait.

Cerberus Crafts: The Flood

Business was decent, but definitely no more than just extra cash on most days. I had recruited two friends that were brothers into the business, hoping that our combined creative powers would give the boost the business needed. Along with the brothers, a new craft was brought in called Perler Bead Art, most commonly known as pixel art. I hadn't seen anything like it before. At first glance, it didn't seem very practical. Interesting, no doubt, but not practical. 

After dabbling with the Perler art for a little, I realized that there was potential for a large and growing consumer base. Nerd culture is big and getting bigger every year and this was perfect for areal business. At this point, I had finally found a job, but my focus remained on the business.

We wanted to really get our business out into the world and make it into a legitimate income, so we set up a booth at Apple Butter Makin' Days last year. It was the first time any of us had ran a booth, let alone selling anything at a fair. The first day, or the beginning anyway, was terrible. When it rains, it pours. That was the literal case for us that day. We arrived to set up our booth at 6 AM after a sleepless night of finishing everything up. It started pouring rain as we got everything unloaded at the Mt. Vernon Square quickly became a pool. 

Fighting through the rain trying to keep everything from getting completely soaked, we finally got everything set up. Then it started to really pour. Another vendor arrived to inform us that we were in their spot. The chamber had failed to let us know that they had moved us to a different location. After getting soaked in a matter of seconds and freezing, I had managed to figure out where we were supposed to go and along we went.

Cerberus Crafts: Origins

Once upon a time, I had hope to become a business owner in the craft business. It started in the fall of 2012 when I was trying to think of something to get my girlfriend for her birthday. She, much like myself, is a huge nerd and especially loves anything Batman and Zelda. Now, I'm sure you know what a wood burner is. I'm almost positive that everyone had one at some point in their life. Of course, most of them were used to see what you could catch on fire, or at least mine was. Needless to say, I didn't have it long.

I don't remember the thought process that led me to choose doing a wood burning, but I decided to do a Zelda piece. Turns out, it was the first of many. Originally I was just doing it as a hobby until one day a friend approached me offering to buy one. Then it hit me. I could make money doing this. I started off primarily doing sports teams and, every once in a while, a nerd related piece.

At the time, I was in between jobs so I was really pushing toward making a living wage during something I had come to highly enjoy. G.P. Woodcrafts became the working name of my "business" in homage to H.P. Lovecraft. I wanted to grab the interest of as many people as possible so that more people would want to buy my stuff. Turns out, I am pretty decent with a Dremel! Some of my more expensive pieces now incorporated engraving all done by hand with my handy dandy Dremel 4000. Those, much like childhood wood burners, didn't last long. They just took too long to make for the money people wanted to spend. There had to be something that I could do that was a realistic endeavor.

Audience

Learning your audience is a daunting tasks through text alone. It is much like trying to determine true emotion through a text message. There is so many little details in people’s actions and responses that can teach you, or at least create an assumption, of how the audience feels.

After reading the discussions pertaining to audience in my class, I can say that there is a decent amount of variety. The question I provided to the class provided some perspective, though not without some analyzing of posts, into why the audience is who they are. From what I gathered, many are Christians, some more obvious than others. This can lead to my thoughts and ideas often times being regarded as unpopular because I am a vocal anti-religion agnostic.

There was a question that asked, "If we could give up something we hold dear forever and do anything we wanted for one day, would we do it and what would it be?" The responses were all the same: It wouldn't be worth it. All, except one. One respondent said that he would do it to have one more day with his deceased wife. The way I perceived these reflects that my audience, when attached to something, will not easily be swayed into giving it up.

Many of the questions were much smaller in scope, but very detail oriented. Knowing something as simple as what people like to listen to can open the door to much more details of their interests. Though it can be looked at as stereotyping, I know that almost everyone I have met that has similar music tastes to myself also have very similar interests. By deducing from that, I can assume, sometimes incorrectly, that people with other similar music tastes will also have similar interests.

All in all, I would say that there are some complex thinkers (big picture) in the audience ranging all the way down to pretty simplistic thinkers (small picture).