At the Library

Currently as I type this blog entry I am chillaxin with Jon Melchert while he slurps his Italian Soda.

Anyways, I've checked out 7 books out for grad project. These books will be posted into my work cited page in a little bit.

Sites Block really needed for my grad projoct

Hello everyone that reads this,
I'm all caught up and looking for notes. Right now Newegg and Dell is block so I'm going have to wait till Mr. Crist unblocks it, other than that I'm caught up and ready for the next step.

Did you know...?

1. If you were to pick all the recommended hardware for the XPS 630 it turns out to be $3,390.
2. People who have purchase a PC with Vista will have a simple upgrade to Windows 7 on October 22, 2009.
3. 3.14% of population actually used Mac OS back in 07 while at the same time only 7.91% used Vista.
4. There are two types of cooling that custom builders and also Dell uses, which is fan cooling and liquid cooling.
5. In the world, there are 3 types of RAM (Random Access Memory), DDR1,2, and 3. The oldest one is DDR1 and is the slowest of them all.
6. Currently, new graphic cards are using DDR3 RAM since it's faster and actually better to process information with it.
7. The traditional case have the PSU (power supply unit) on the top but with Antec (a supplier) they recently decided to put the PSU on the bottom for the best air flow.
   
8. There are also 2 different types of HDD (Hard drive disk), SATA and IDE cables and power supple cables for those types of drives.
9. Crysis can only be supported by the newest graphic cards because of the rich textures in the game. If you have a graphics card before GTX 260 then you can't play the game under the full effect feature.
10. Apple recently allow Intel CPUs in their laptops and desktops.
    

Projects for the weekend

1. Finish webliography (IMPORTANT!!!)
   
2. finish collage
3. take notes
4. finally look for a specialist
   

Plan B (Plan A not so good)

I'm still pushing with magic but just in case of failure, plan b is going to be "how do you build a computer". I know what you are going to say, "it's simple" but actually building a pc is actually a little harder than you may think since you have to go with how well is the air flow is, what type of thermal paste do i have to use, how will the machine be used ect. I'm just saying it's a plan b because it will be easy to get back in gear if I were to change topics.

Any advice?

Almost up to date

Alright so for the past week, I've been working extremely hard to make sure that I improve my grade from a 54 (I think) to a 70 or more and if you take a look at my current grade check, i'm at a 70.6!!! Very good spot to be right before Parent Teacher Conference. During the weekend I will be finishing my annotations and foundation questions. On a side note, I might be thinking to change the whole topic because Magic is a good hobby but the secrecy and purchasing information will hard to get major information about a few illusions so i'll stick with it until goes wrong or I can't continue with it.

Collage finished

I have finished my collage yesterday as you can see on your right.
Comment down below and tell me how it is.

Did you know...?

1. There are 329 magicians in Pittsburgh
   
2. Harry Houdini is Hungarian
3. over 10 genres of magic
4. There is a whole museum dedicated to magic in Marshall, Michigan.
5. David Copperfield separate from his body without a cloth, one of a very unique effects in magic
6. Neil Patrick Harris is a magician and also is part of the Board of Directors of the Magic Castle.
7. Kevin James created most if not all illusions you see on stage for David Copperfield, Lance Burton and many others.
8. Harry Houdini actual name is Erik Weiss
9. A lot of sleights handling are actually used in con men
10. There is an international group called International Brother of Magic
11. David Copperfield holds a world record called "Magician holding the most world records"

I'm not sure anymore ...

The magic idea is getting me to dead ends because each time I google search it's either buying magic or buying a magician. The foundation questions are easy to make up for this topic but searching for information instead of buying for stage magic products is what is dragging me down. I'm not sure if I should continue this or change up my whole project.

Questions and Sources

Alright I'm a little behind with coming up with sources. Stage magic is a great topic just not sure what to be searching for. Other than that, I'm working on my foundation questions.

My Essential Question is " What is the process of starting a stage magic show in Pittsburgh PA?"
If anyone have ideas on how to improve my question, let me know by commenting down below.

Defining my action plan a little more

To Mr. Hamilton;
"Who is going to use this resource? How are they going to use it? What's the point?"

Because of your questions it made my mind turn a bit about my action plan. The people who will use my project will be beginning magicians or even comedians since all you have to do is remove the magic part and put in the comedian parts.

For how they are going to use it, I believe that I make the process into basically a "How-To" video or something like that.

The point of my project is to show how much work magicians (or any other stage acts) must go through in order to look good on stage.

Research

So the research i'll be doing is starting off with history of stage magic, move into learning some really fancy effects, and then go into the drama department so i learn the way of the stage. From all of that i will then research on how to get a stage show then find a place to have my show at.


To Mr.Hamilton;
Basically it is going to be behind the scenes from the beginning of planning out the show to preforming on the stage and all the fun stuff in the middle (boring long hours of practicing and getting stage placement right).

Creation and Performance - Stage Magic (New topic)

My new and final topic idea is the creation and performance of a new routine for stage magic. Today Ringold leaded me to a few stage magic websites such as 12magic.com and another one. So my project is going to be developing a show showing you the process of creating a stage magic routine and the history of it.

back tracking

Alright so I've discussed with Mr. Ringold about stage magic again, just right now I'm not sure what do to with stage magic. Maybe the process of creating a new effect and preforming it on stage or the process of making a great show. I'm just not sure what to do with magic.

New topic

Alright so now I'm finally on a road to somewhere. I've already started an idea for creating a computer repair business so that is going to be my grad project. The plan is research on computer repair and starting a business then action plan is to get a business going to make a profit.

Lost...

Right now thinking for a topic isn't really going well. Originally, I was thinking how does magic affects the brain but as it turns out its going to be extremely difficult to build it into a grad project topic over a science project so right now I'm kind of lost of a topic. Another area I was thinking about is computers or something dealing with technology just not sure how to build off from there.

Questions ( 9/4/2009)

• What have you heard about the graduation project at City High? Do you know any students in 12th grade or who have already graduated that completed their projects? What were their experiences?

What I heard about the graduation project is that it needs to be good in order to graduate.

• What are some interests you have that you think you might like to structure a project around?

Technology, magic, military

• What are some of the concerns that you have about the graduation project?

If I fail i can't graduate which will really hold me back.