The Art of Pumpkin Carving, Part 2

Now that Halloween is around the corner, I've gotten around to carving my pumpkins and here's what I ended up with:

These little guys were pretty easy to make. I ordered a dozen vampire teeth from Amazon, bought some little pumpkins and cut out mouth shapes then stuck the teeth in. They didn't last as long as I hoped and was pretty grossed out to find the mouths were black. Needless to say, I didn't recover the teeth...

If you want to make these guys, the shape for the small and big mouth can be found here. The teeth won't look right if the lines aren't straight so be careful with that.

Also, I think mine didn't last so long because I didn't clean them out. The only hole is the mount but it should be big enough to get some of the insides out of these small gourds. 

I thought it was fun that Assassin's Creed 3 was coming out right around Halloween so I decided to pay homage to the game. Last year, I did Portal pumpkins so this was along the same vein. Plus, I've been working on powering through Assassin's Creed 2 so I can do the second part of my series (btw - I adore Ezio. Can I just say that?) The pumpkin was very easy but having such a big piece in the middle with little support was my downfall and when the biology started setting in, the middle caved. I'm glad I snapped this before that happened!

I saw a picture for a Dark Knight Joker pumpkin and I knew I had to do that. I've only really scraped one pumpkin before so I wasn't sure how it would go but I think it turned out really well. The picture I was going off had a variety of shades on the face. Some areas were black so I didn't touch those. Every other lighter area, I did a base scrape. From there, I scraped deeper on the light areas and left the medium ones with a fair amount of thickness. I think the key here would be to constantly light the pumpkin and see how it's going.   I think it would have looked better if I'd gone a little deeper but it still turned out pretty cool. 

The last pumpkin may be hard to figure out if you don't know what you're looking for but it's the Delorean from Back to the Future with it's flame trails. To be honest, I was a little pumpkined out by the point and was preoccupied with the World Series (GO GIANTS!!!!) so I really phoned this one in. This is basically the image I was going off of. Again... phone that one in...

I also made a couple of tweaks to the Heath pumpkin. This is the picture I used for that one. There's is definitely more angular but like I said, I'm still a pumpkin-scraper-in-training. Hopefully, next year I can nail it down because I already have some amazing things I want to try. 

The important thing for me is to try to do something fun and creative. Face pumpkins are cool but I've made dozens of them. I didn't start doing images until a few years ago so I'm probably going to stick with it for a while. 

Arrow, Episode 2 - Who's Still Watching?

Pilots are pretty unique episodes. They usually tend to stand out from the rest of the season or run of a show because they have one purpose - to attract viewers. Usually they either fail horribly (cough, Beauty and the Beast, coughcough) or work pretty well. Since Arrow's was the latter, I was curious to see how the second episode followed up.

There was one big thing that I was on the fence about in the pilot and once I was able to get around my initial qualms about the show, I found it to be incredibly glaring in the second episode. I had no idea what to make of the acting, specifically the lead. I couldn't decide if Stephen Amell is either an amazing or terrible actor.

The question started last week and the acting issue became more apparent in the second episode. When Amell is playing Ollie Queen, he's stiff and bland. He makes a lot of awkward smirks. You really can't help but think that he was hired to be a pretty face. The character really falls flat... until you realize that he's playing several different parts...

There are at least 3 different roles that he's tackling: Ollie Queen, Arrow, and Ollie Queen in flash backs and all three of these characters are pretty different. Present day Ollie Queen is the one that drives me crazy. He's emotionless and flat. However, this can be explained by the fact that he's been living on a deserted island for five years and is probably pretty scarred. We haven't seen a lot of Arrow yet. He's spoken occasionally but it's in that solid, justified Batman kind of way. However, the flashbacks to younger, pre-accident Oliver Queen are almost like a completely different character. The mannerisms, the expressions, even the tone of voice almost make you think it's a different actor all together.

It makes me really happy that they have these flashbacks and continue to have them. It makes for a more well-rounded character AND let's you see that Amell is more than a pretty face. At the end of the episode when Oliver realized he was going to have to act like his pre-accident self in order to mask his secret, he again completely transformed into the immature playboy that was completely unique from the Oliver Queen in the rest of the episode. That was when I settled the acting talent question once and for all. This guy is good.

Aside from that, the show is growing on me. I was having trouble with that hurdle but once I got over it, I was able to appreciate the rest of the show. I said in the last review that I would really like it if the show continues to use flashbacks to explain what happened to Oliver on the island that transformed him into Arrow and gave him the skills he now possesses. This episode solidified that they are indeed going to continue with that which I think is vital to making this show more complex than just a "hero catches bad guys" story.

I'm excited to see how it goes. It seems like they're still filling some back story and setting the show up which has made it move a little slower, but I have high hopes.

CW's Two New Geeky Shows

Last week the CW premiered two shows that definitely flashed on my geeky radar. Both made me a little wary but the plots piqued my interest and I figured it would be good to give them a shot. I had a few slots open on my weekday tv schedule so there really wasn't much to lose. Both shows had the distinct possibility of being amazing or completely terrible... so let's see how they turned out.

Both reviews include extensive plot summary so beware of spoilers. However, they are both on the pilot episodes so even with spoilers, it's all need-to-know information if you want to get into the show(s)!

Beauty and the Beast

Even though this show premiered second, I watched it first because I thought it was sure to be the better of the two shows. I had no really no intention of watching this show originally. I love the Disney movie of my childhood and the Once Upon a Time interpretation of the story, so I was pretty content with where the fairy tale laid in my eyes. Plus, seeing advertisements of a not-so-ugly beast really made the show come off as just another crappy CW melodrama.

Until I actually read up on the plot... The show was to take a new angle on the tale as old as time. This beauty was more than a damsel in distress - she was actually an NYPD detective who comes across a man who saved her life ten years earlier. She learns that he was part of a failed military experiment that has left him (hardly) deformed and will super human powers. He has faked his own death so they don't come after him and he needs her help to stay hidden. Wow! A Beauty and the Beast story where she helps save him as much as he saves her? That doesn't sound so bad.

I was wrong.

The story has so many flaws, I'm not even sure where to begin. First of all, for a crime drama, the cops' actions just don't really make sense. While solving the opening mystery, they jump to a ridiculous number of arbitrary conclusions. My favorite is when they find a pregnancy test in a public area of the victim's workplace and assume she is pregnant even though this doesn't come up in the autopsy and they mention that it should have. You'd think that would be a flag that test belonged to someone else... The main character's actions are just so off the charts, that it was borderline ridiculous. She gets a search warrant for a building and then goes without her partner. There she finds a man that is supposed to be dead who is the only suspect as his fingerprints were at the crime scene and does not arrest him because he had a news article about her mother's death and more or less asked her not to. Then, there is a scene where she is attacked on a subway platform that inexplicably has no one there besides herself and the attackers. Despite this, the beast is there and saves her life again, killing three people. They both flee the scene even though she is a cop and could easily be linked back to the crime in about 20 different ways.

This pilot just completely baffled me. This was some of the worst, hole-filled writing I have ever seen. The show  took a pretty cool sounding premise and destroyed it by not being thoughtful in the writing. With so many popular crime shows on TV, it's so easy to see how many problems there are with the logic in this show. The whole thing seemed incredibly rushed and I need a bit more effort so this was definitely the first and last episode of Beauty and the Beast for me.

Arrow

I almost didn't even want to watch this after the last one. However, I figured I should at least give the pilot a chance... and I'm so glad I did.

The story starts off with Oliver Queen, a ship wrecked billionaire, using a flaming arrow to light a fire and signal the ship that will save him from the island he is stranded on. You quickly learn he has been stranded for five years and his father died in the accident that left him deserted. The doctor that inspects him correctly foreshadows that this Oliver has likely been changed by the island where he has lived for so long.

Throughout the episode, Oliver has flashbacks to the shipwreck which teach the viewer that Oliver's father was involved in some shady dealings when he ran the Queen company. He wants Oliver to survive the crash in order to fix the corruption that he started and then takes his own life so that Ollie can use the supplies to survive. It is clear that there are still many gaps about what else Oliver learned during the wreck and on the island and hopefully the show continues to use flash backs to fill in this information.

Now back home with his wealth and resources, Oliver is able to set up a secret base that he can use to create high tech weapons and set up powerful computer systems that he can use to track down evil and corrupt criminals in order to restore justice to society using primarily arrows.

If you think this sounds just like Batman meets Robin Hood - you pretty much nailed it.

I really love super hero movies, but wasn't an avid comic book reader so I knew just about nothing about Arrow going into this show. I figured the character was just the DC version of Hawkeye and that wasn't terribly far off. What I wasn't expecting was an archer version of Batman. However, I really like Batman so I'm okay with that. I'm excited to see where this show goes. They set up a lot in this pilot. There are many avenues to go down for future villains, recurring villains, deeper back story, future side kicks, and potential love interests. The writing gives a lot of information in the pilot while barely scraping the surface and I'm very excited to keep watching.

Arrow is on Wednesdays at 8pm and Beauty and the Beast is Thursdays at 9pm. Both shows are on the CW.

How Did the Ghost Patch His Sheet?

With a Pumpkin Patch!....No, nothing? Bummer.

With the World Famous Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival happening this weekend near us, I was already going to write this before Nikki blogged about carving them, so puns aside, here are some fun facts about that gorgeous gourd, the PUMPKIN!

Pumpkins are believed to have originated in North America. Seeds from related plants have been found in Mexico dating back to 7000 to 5500 B.C.

A pumpkin is really a squash, which is actually a fruit! Seriously, I don't make this stuff up. This is science! Maybe this is. Or this.

Early references to pumpkins go back several hundred years. They were called “pompions” (from the Greek word ‘pepon’, meaning “large melon”).

American Indian tribes grew pumpkins for food and long before the discovery of corn, relied on pumpkins to get them through long winters.

Pumpkins were once thought of as a cure for freckles and snake bites.

Pumpkins are now grown on every continent except Antarctica.

Pumpkins are 90 percent water.

Pumpkins are monoecious, having both male and female flowers on the same plant.
After planting, it takes pumpkin approximately 90 to 120 days to mature. There is only one day during the entire growing season, in which the pumpkin flower can be pollinated. If the growing season is a dry one, pumpkins will typically be 20% - 30% smaller, in size.

80% of the pumpkin supply in the US is available in October.

Thanks for reading!

The Art of Pumpkin Carving

With Halloween coming up, I thought it would be fun to have some relative posts. For those of you who don't know, I dabble in the arts recreationally. I love painting and sculpture but really don't take as much time to do it as I should. That makes Halloween extra fun for me - I like being creative with my pumpkins and try to push the skill and nerdy limits each year.

I have no idea what I'm going to do yet but you better believe it will be amazing and probably have some sort of geek cred. Here are some of my past masterpieces:

An ode to my favorite team and Alma Mater

I clearly like Portal...

I think anyone can make fun pumpkins if you take the time to be thoughtful about it. Here are some of my tips for easier pumpkin carving:

• Be mindful when picking your pumpkin - get one that is big enough to easily fit your image and has a flat face.
• Make it easier on yourself - when cleaning your pumpkin, do extra scraping on the inside wall of the side you are going to carve. You can easily thin out the wall which will make carving a lot easier. 
• Have your image ready. Print out or rough sketch your image and then try to trace it over to the pumpkin. It's pretty tough to free hand on a round surface, especially if you're not artistic. This will give you a better idea of how it's going to fit too.
• TOOLS - I can't state this enough. Pumpkin carving kits can be helpful but it's likely that the tools are cheap and will fall apart. Get a variety of pumpkin specific kits. Amazon is a good spot to look since people leave reviews. Also don't be afraid to think outside the box here. I often use kitchen knives, pottery tools, regular tools - anything I can get my hands on to make the job easier.
• Be creative - scary faces are fun but I love that my pumpkins were unique. More and more people are changing up their pumpkins from using multiple pumpkins in one piece, painting, or using glow sticks to incorporate fun colors. If you're not creative but want to do something fun - search around the web for fun ideas.

I really loved last year's pumpkins, but I know I need to step out of the box this time. Any suggestions for me? With certain video game releases this month and movies that I loved this summer, I have an idea or two...

Some of us Cinnamon Geeks are going to get together to carve our pumpkins later this month. Something tells me you'll be hearing about it. 

Recap: Assassin's Creed

Assassin's Creed is a game I always wanted to play and knew I would love. However, I never felt a huge urge to play it as I had seen a lot of the story already. Then - I saw the trailers for Assassin's Creed III/Liberation and was incredibly excited to play the new games. I decided to try to play the preceding games by the release date of the new one and document them here as a recap for anyone else who's planning on getting the game(s) this fall. Spoilers will be in italic. 

Story 

When the story starts, you are instantly throw into the game as an assassin with a multitude of commands being thrown at you. It's almost impossible to keep up and you die quickly. As it turns out, you are actually a guy named Desmond who lives in current times but has been hooked up to a machine called an Animus. The Animus allows you to relive the memories of your ancestors and Desmond comes from a long line of assassins. He is being held against his will and sent back to the Crusades era to unlock a memory of his ancestor, Altair. 

Altair is a very prominent assassin but after failing a mission and causing the death of a colleague because of sloppiness, his rank and tools are taken away. Altair needs to start from the bottom and assassinate nine targets in three cities (Damascus, Acre, and Jerusalem) order to have his rank restored.

As you begin to assassinate your targets, you learn that many of them have reasons behind the things they are doing and Altair begins to question his mission. The master of the assassins tells you that they are all part of the Templars and their mission is to create a new world order. This reinvigorates Altair and brings him more in line with the Assassin Brotherhood than he ever was before.

Meanwhile, in Desmond's world, he learns that the company that has kidnapped him is also part of the Templar group. They use the Animus to discover the location of ancient treasures and secrets that give them power in modern times. In between Animus sessions, Desmond also begins to be able to snoop around the area he is being held. He is able to find access codes and read the emails of one of the people holding him, Lucy.

Back in Altair's time, he finally takes out the last Templar only to learn that there is a tenth - his own master. When he goes to confront him, he finds that the master has taken the treasure for himself - a Piece of Eden - which allows it's owner to control minds. The artifact only partially works on Altair so instead of succumbing to the control, he is able to fight his master. This Piece of Eden, is one of many hidden around the world. Once the master is defeated and Altair gains control of it, the other locations are revealed.

At this time, Desmond is unhooked from the Animus as the kidnappers have the information they need. They are going to kill him but Lucy points out that they may still need his help in the future so it would be good to leave him around. Desmond has the ability to explore the rooms he's held in again and begins to see hidden markings on the walls and floors. And this is where the game ends... 

Game-play 

The game play is pretty straight forward. The buttons are fairly easy to figure out and there is always a guide in the top right corner of your screen to remind you of what the controls are (they change if you hold right trigger). There are a variety of running speeds and Altair is pretty responsive to the control sticks. I did encounter a few buggy things though. If you are targeted on a person, it's very difficult to control your camera angle which is very frustrating. This happens a lot when fighting a group of guards and I've often had the camera behind some scaffolding or other obstacle that completely obstructed my view. I also found that Altair didn't always go where I was directing him on the climbing missions, even if it was a spot he could go to. All in all, some things were a little clunky. There were a few instances of half-my-body-is-in-a-building but I didn't seem to get "stuck" as I thought I would. I heard this got figured out for the sequel and I hope that's true. 

There are two ways to "level up." The first is by doing the objectives in your mission. If you do a certain number, your health will increase. The second way is by completing an assassination challenge. You will have a skill or weapon restored each time you are successful with that. The game itself moves pretty quickly. You have a minimum you need to do to advance and you can do more on top of that. Since I was trying to play through the game in a short amount of time, this was a nice touch although I tried to do most of the challenges (except collecting items). At first I wasn't going to do all of the "Save the Civilian" challenges unless they were directly in my path but I quickly learned it was a good way to increase your health bar as well as practice fighting. After I doing a few in a row, I could feel the movements getting smoother which definitely nice. Sometimes you get to take out a Templar as well (even though I wasn't intentionally trying to collect things). By the last few cities, I also stopped doing insider challenges. 

I really loved the Bird's Eye View challenges. As a climber, it was fun to climb in the game and look for what would make a good hold. The sweeping shots of the cities were beautiful. I did mess up the leap of faith a couple of times but the game still counted the objective complete which was nice. I also like that there are a variety of buildings to climb within each city as well as various architecture styles. 

Review 

The Taste of Power trope at the beginning was a little painful. It's always hard going from all powerful to novice. However, it was great to slowly learn all of the many skills that Altair has as an assassin. The objectives of the game can be a little monotonous. It's clear that you will have a pickpocket, an eavesdropping, an assault, an informer assassination, an informer flag challenge, civilian saving, bird's eye view challenge, and key assassination in every city area. The differences among each city and little nuances keep the game from getting stale but a little more variety wouldn't have hurt. 

The more interesting part was definitely the bigger story of why these assassinations are important and which side is actually good vs. corrupt. It's also interesting to wonder why such ancient memories are important in modern times and the way clues are slowly dropped through out the game definitely kept me trying to solve the bigger puzzle as I played through the story. 

I really loved the concept of the game as a whole. I thought it was very original and the modern vs. historical aspect of it made it seem relevant. My biggest problems with the game had to do with just the gameplay dynamics. It seems like they had this fantastic concept but then rushed to get it out without doing testing and troubleshooting. My next problem would just be that I wasn't a big fan of the idea of blending in. I know you're supposed to be a stealth assassin but I don't have a ton of patience to tip toe through crowds. I ended up spending most of the time jumping around the rooftops since it was the quickest way to get around without being seen. This paired with the knife throwing (there are occasional roof guards) ended up solving the problem pretty quickly. 

Since the whole point of this recap series is in anticipation of ACIII, I've also been watching and reading all about that. I recently saw a video that talks about how they used old maps to recreate Boston and New York. I thought this was really interesting so I went on Google maps and looked up Damascus, Jerusalem, and Acre and compared them to the maps in the game. Each city, although much larger and different now, definitely had an "old city" that closely resembled those in the game. The Google map couldn't zoom in too closely and the cities obviously have shown some deterioration throughout the millennium but it was a nice touch that I will look forward to exploring further in the future games (which take place in cities I've actually been to). 

Now time to start AC2 - anything I should keep in mind? I'm excited to see if they've fixed the issues I listed above.