As a way of helping me to post to Critically Correct on a regular basis, I came up with the idea to write articles based on a handful of common topics - known on Critically Correct as "Channels." As I create Channels based on these ideas, you will be able to view the different topic categories on the page below.
Stay tuned as I prepare to publish my first feature from "The B3 Backstory."
List of Critically Correct Channels
B3 out.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
The Twenty-Three Hour Day
Working in the Systems and Grocery Departments at Meijer during my college years introduced me to a lot of responsibility that affected thousands of people every day. It also introduced me to full forty-hour work weeks, and I quickly learned to deal with a work schedule that ate into my social life from time to time.
6:00am shifts were a very cozy way to start my mornings most days of the week, but it was my 4:00am Sunday shifts in Grocery that really kept my free time in check. Despite going to bed around 5:30pm every Saturday afternoon for a year and a half, I actually found a grand upside to this six-or-four schedule: the Twenty-Three Hour Day.
On the occasions that I worked and had the subsequent day off, I was presented with the opportunity to have a very, very long day. I have always loved making the most of my waking hours, so look at an example of a Wednesday schedule for a 6:00am work day:
- 4:30am: Up for work
- 6:00am - 2:30pm: Work at Meijer
- 3:00pm - 7:00pm: Classes at BGSU
- 7:30pm - 8:30pm: Meet up with friends
- 8:30pm - 1:00am: B-Dubs for dinner / drinks / karaoke
- 1:00am - 2:00am: Visit with friends / hang out
- 2:30am - 3:30am: Arrive home / browse the Internet / sleep
One caveat - I never did this schedule back-to-back. I could never function with one hour of sleep, so I only pushed the above schedule when I had the next day to sleep in, as I stated previously.
I did not always work a full day at Meijer; some shifts were shorter to accommodate a longer class schedule, but I believe my point is clear. I had some long days in college and I loved them. Working at 6:00am and later on drinking with friends at B-Dubs at midnight made my day feel sharply divided, and despite my fatigue by the late hours, I never retired early like I do so frequently now.
Having such a long day meant that I was able to see many friends in those twenty-three hours. Coworkers at Meijer (Dale, Jason), classmates at BGSU (names not applicable), old friends between trips (Lindsay, Diana), and my best friends at B-Dubs (Lacey, Jamie, Austin). Such social diversity was a bit overwhelming for me on some days, but these were definitely the most enjoyable days of my life. Since graduating college I see a pretty stable rotation of the same dozen or so people every week. While there is nothing wrong with my current friends (no offense intended), it is not the same awesome variety that I had in college.
I was also in much better shape with such long days. While I did tend to stock up on caffeine and junk food to keep me going throughout my day, constantly being on the move definitely provided me with exercise that I do not get with my routine 8-to-5 desk job. When I finally hit my pillow in the 3:00am hour my entire body was exhausted from head to toe. Sleeping in never felt as good as it did back then.
In between scurrying from place to place on my busy schedule, I found time do all sorts of little things. For example, I found time to write - fiction or Critically Correct - or play video games - Nintendo DS and GameBoy Advance. I programmed, cranked out little pieces of code for computer science projects, or read a chapter or two of a textbook for whatever class required the reading.
From four in the morning until three in the morning a day later, I kept busy. I was exhausted when I woke up and exhausted when I went to bed, but in between I had a hell of a time, and if I could go back and redo all of those days I would not change a damn thing.
B3 out.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Classic B3: My Favorite Critically Correct Posts Thus Far
In the last four and a half years of writing Critically Correct, I have published an article or two that genuinely excited me from the moment I began the writing process. In other cases a gem was developed with age - an article or blog entry that remained particularly memorable months or years after I wrote it. Sometimes I stumble upon an old favorite simply by flipping though random entries in Critically Correct's archive.
April 2007
After my success with IGN linking to my blog, I set out to recreate that with another gaming feature, which did not garner nearly the attention that my previous article had. Even so I found that I greatly enjoyed pouring considerable time and writing resources into an article such as this one.
The Flashback Songs
July 2007
Among my top ten favorite posts; I chronicled all of my favorite songs from year to year since I began listening to music in 1998. I plan to update this list every couple of years.
The "What If..." Post
December 2007
Asus' first Eee PC 701 was a milestone in the computing industry, essentially creating the modern netbook market; a new category of small, cheap, and lightweight laptop computers. I was floored by this concept, and I purchased a launch unit from NewEgg and dumped my notes and first-thoughts in this article.
"The Lion King" has a been a massive influence in my life since I was ten years old, and in 2008 I was able to see "The Lion King" musical in Toledo, which brought every emotion in me pouring out as I was transformed into a ten year old boy for two hours on one awesome Saturday night.
Just about every song in my nearly 3000-song collection has a connection or memory tied to my past. I wanted to explore both the breadth and depth of what I could recall by picking a bunch of random songs from my library and remembering what each song means to me. It was a fun exercise that I intend to revisit in the future.
Audiosurf Review
August 2008
My Legend With Zelda
I continued to tinker with creative writing even less than a year out of college, and at the beginning of 2009 I began to study creative writing on my own more seriously than before. From that came this short article about why character change is important in fiction and a brief summary of where my fiction would be going in 2009.
The Decade In Review: Ten Years of B3
December 2009
My newest and my personal favorite article on Critically Correct, "Ten Years of B3" is a look back at my life between 2000 and 2009, covering my freshman year in high school through my moving to Findlay post-college. The girls, the games, the jobs, the fun, the drama, the misery: I touched upon every aspect of my life and left nothing off the table.
Before I push forward towards the future of Critically Correct, I am taking a moment to look back at some of my favorite moments in the past four years. While I started blogging in July of 2005, much of Critically Correct's first year was a mess of emotions as my relationship with Lacey ended. Come late 2006, however, my writing turned from a constant personal sorrow to a genuine desire to share with the world new fiction, essays, and reviews.
Without further ado, I present to you my favorite posts from the first four years of Critically Correct:
February 2006
If I wrote my 100th blog post today, it would have been a look back at the previous 99 posts. Instead, my 100th blog post in early 2006 was par-for-the-course; a routine description of my week. However, at a time when I was still deeply rooted in sorrow from my failed relationship with Lacey, my 100th post reaffirmed that there was more to my life than girls. I enjoyed writing, and I enjoyed my new blog. Getting to 100 posts was proof that I could accomplish something serious if I really gave it my all.
June 2006
After a short writing stint as a music critic in high school, I came to love reviewing media - movies, music, games, etc. - and my blog was a great avenue for that type of writing. It was not until June of 2006 that I finally got around to writing my first serious review, and as would become common on Critically Correct, it was a game review.
November 2006
Three-Double-Zero
While my high-school-era essay series "Just a Crush, Or True Love?" was long done and over by the end of 2006, I still felt the desire to write about love and sex. Rather than write a new formal essay (with structure, flow, and all sorts of formalities), I opted to let my mind wander free with the relaxed format of my personal blog. What came of this were back-to-back entries that read like a snapshot of my personal views on sex in late 2006.
Three-Double-Zero
November 2006
2006 was a busy year for Critically Correct, and with my writing career taking shape at BGSU, I opted to celebrate my 300th post on my blog with a rant and review of my blog's life thus far at that point in time. Unlike my 100th post, three-hundred was a much more solid number and a reaffirmation that my blog was not going anywhere. I was writing Critically Correct for the long haul, and for this I had plenty of reason to celebrate.
2006 was a busy year for Critically Correct, and with my writing career taking shape at BGSU, I opted to celebrate my 300th post on my blog with a rant and review of my blog's life thus far at that point in time. Unlike my 100th post, three-hundred was a much more solid number and a reaffirmation that my blog was not going anywhere. I was writing Critically Correct for the long haul, and for this I had plenty of reason to celebrate.
April 2007
As a big fan of the Nintendo DS in 2007 I wrote a short-but-detailed article summarizing what I thought would comprise Nintendo's next version of the DS, always and still dubbed the "Nintendo DS 2." About a week after writing this, I sent an email to the staff of the IGN Nintendo DS channel and asked their opinions of my ideas. Rather than reply, they simply linked my blog from their DS front page for a week. Critically Correct's traffic quadrupled, and I gathered over two-thousand unique hits from IGN in a week. For the first time in my blogging career I entertained the idea of taking Critically Correct commercial.
April 2007
After my success with IGN linking to my blog, I set out to recreate that with another gaming feature, which did not garner nearly the attention that my previous article had. Even so I found that I greatly enjoyed pouring considerable time and writing resources into an article such as this one.
The Flashback Songs
July 2007
Among my top ten favorite posts; I chronicled all of my favorite songs from year to year since I began listening to music in 1998. I plan to update this list every couple of years.
December 2007
This was to be a post filled with a little bit of everything - reviews, notes, and... I guess sadness? Either way, I ended up devoting 90% of my words to a review of Valve's The Orange Box, which included my personal favorite Portal. This was also the first time that I tried writing short-form reviews in order to get a better turn around time on my reviews.
The "What If..." Post
December 2007
This is one of my favorite pieces of writing on Critically Correct. I combined the personal nature of my blog, my tendencies to reflect upon the past, and my love of creative writing to wonder "what if" key moments in my life had happened differently from how they really played out. I intend to revisit this "What If..." as a themed series of articles in the near future.
Five Double Zero
October 2007
My 500th blog post was a moment of celebration for me. "Five Double Zero" was a solid reflection on the past two years of blogging, as well as a mixture of newer content, including notes on the current week and a review of one of my most-played DS games, "Rune Factory."
Five Double Zero
October 2007
My 500th blog post was a moment of celebration for me. "Five Double Zero" was a solid reflection on the past two years of blogging, as well as a mixture of newer content, including notes on the current week and a review of one of my most-played DS games, "Rune Factory."
November 2007
Asus' first Eee PC 701 was a milestone in the computing industry, essentially creating the modern netbook market; a new category of small, cheap, and lightweight laptop computers. I was floored by this concept, and I purchased a launch unit from NewEgg and dumped my notes and first-thoughts in this article.
"The Lion King" has a been a massive influence in my life since I was ten years old, and in 2008 I was able to see "The Lion King" musical in Toledo, which brought every emotion in me pouring out as I was transformed into a ten year old boy for two hours on one awesome Saturday night.
The Best of Spring Break
March 2008
March 2008
As my last of five spring breaks came to a close at BGSU, I reflected upon each of the five major breaks and chose my favorite. Plain and simple, right? Turns out a few of my spring breaks were among the most unique and memorable experiences in my entire life.
Just about every song in my nearly 3000-song collection has a connection or memory tied to my past. I wanted to explore both the breadth and depth of what I could recall by picking a bunch of random songs from my library and remembering what each song means to me. It was a fun exercise that I intend to revisit in the future.
Audiosurf Review
August 2008
Audiosurf came out of nowhere for me. An action-puzzle music game unlike any other, it blended my love of Guitar Hero with something quirky, creative, and addictive. I wrote a fairly lengthy review of the game and gave it glowing, gushing amounts of love. While the same high praise does not stand quite as strong today, it is still one hell of a game.
My Legend With Zelda
November 2008
On the ten-year anniversary of the release of "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" I published one of my favorite articles - a look at how my favorite gaming franchise came into my life and how it has influenced me over the years.
A Literary Type of Change
February 2009
February 2009
I continued to tinker with creative writing even less than a year out of college, and at the beginning of 2009 I began to study creative writing on my own more seriously than before. From that came this short article about why character change is important in fiction and a brief summary of where my fiction would be going in 2009.
March 2009
While relatively fresh out of college, I had learned several important lessons in my years at BGSU and in the months following graduation. I felt that I had enough educated experience to share with anyone still in college or considering going to college.
Ten Years Strong: True Love Is Back
June 2009
June 2009
Sometime in 2009 I became intrigued by the idea of reviving old writing series, and "Just a Crush, or True Love?" was at the forefront of my interests. With an updated, expanded, and matured view of true love, I wrote the sixth entry into this series with the intent of bringing it back as a regular, annual feature.
The Decade In Review: Ten Years of B3
December 2009
My newest and my personal favorite article on Critically Correct, "Ten Years of B3" is a look back at my life between 2000 and 2009, covering my freshman year in high school through my moving to Findlay post-college. The girls, the games, the jobs, the fun, the drama, the misery: I touched upon every aspect of my life and left nothing off the table.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
2010 Concerts
2009 was a kickin' year for concerts, and I intend to make 2010 even better.
I intend to start with some of the following concerts:
Saturday 17 April 2010
Blue October
Columbus, OH (Lifestyles Pavilion)
Sunday 9 May 2010
Pearl Jam
Band of Horses
Cleveland, OH (Quicken Loans Arena)
(alternative: Thursday 6 May 2010, Columbus, OH: Nationwide Arena)
Friday 14 May 2010
Barenaked Ladies
Toledo, OH (Toledo Zoo)
Saturday 22 May 2010 – Sunday 23 May 2010
Rock on the Range
Columbus, OH (Crew Stadium)
B3 out.
I intend to start with some of the following concerts:
Saturday 17 April 2010
Blue October
Columbus, OH (Lifestyles Pavilion)
Sunday 9 May 2010
Pearl Jam
Band of Horses
Cleveland, OH (Quicken Loans Arena)
(alternative: Thursday 6 May 2010, Columbus, OH: Nationwide Arena)
Friday 14 May 2010
Barenaked Ladies
Toledo, OH (Toledo Zoo)
Saturday 22 May 2010 – Sunday 23 May 2010
Rock on the Range
Columbus, OH (Crew Stadium)
B3 out.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Twenty One Again
Time always moves forward. This is no more apparent than by the annual reminder of a birthday. This past Saturday I had the opportunity to take part in a friend's twenty-first birthday celebration, and it was definitely a reminder of great times in my own past.
Of all the milestone birthdays that a young adult grows through - sweet sixteen for driving privileges, adult rights at eighteen - twenty-one is probably the most anticipated. Yet for all the excitement over this age, my own twenty-first was quiet and subdued. On October 3rd, 2005 I worked at Meijer until 11pm and did nothing at midnight; the following day I ordered a Sprite for my dinner drink - alcohol was not on my mind. This surprised neither my family nor friends since I had no prior interests in drinking.
This past Saturday, by contrast, was a birthday celebration as I would have wanted mine in retrospect: spent with close friends in comfortable places. The night started quietly in BG at my friend's house before moving to dinner at Ralphie's in Perrysburg for a fairly casual chicken-and-beer meal. I enjoyed a huge serving of "Chipotle BBQ Bacon Cheddar Chunks" - the Ralphie's equivalent of my Jed's favorite Bacon Doublecheese Balls. I did not drink with everyone else, as I opted to be a designated driver for the evening.
I figured the night would be short and sweet: dinner and a few drinks around Bowling Green. Instead the night carried onward at Nate and Wally's, where the birthday girl got a much better introduction into the world of drinking than I ever did: plenty of shots and Sex on the Beach drinks rounded out the night. Late night bars, food, and plenty of drinks? Oh, I miss college so much it hurts. That was another era of my life gone by, but this past weekend was a definite blast-from-the-past reminder of how much fun I had in younger years, and how much fun I deny myself by staying in the same rut week after week.
Time may move forward but I promise that I will move forward with it.
B3 out.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Rebirth
Welcome back.
Another area of change for Critically Correct is the breadth of content. For the past two years or so I have been carefully screening what I write about and what I keep close to myself. In many cases I held back more than I wanted, and I consider all future blog entries to be firmly in free-for-all territory. Will some of what I have to say upset a few people here and there? Oh, most definitely. However, Critically Correct has not been the same since I have not been the same, and being able to free myself from artificial censoring constraints means I can post more frequently, with my interests, and with much more passion.
I can't wait to share a great 2010 with you.
B3 out.
Take a minute to notice the new color scheme and design theme of Critically Correct. Where I before focused on sharp lines and bold color contrasts, I have now turned to a concept filled with bright colors, subtle tonal shifts and consistent transparencies. This sort of carefully-shifted refinement is at the center of my renewed interest in reviving my writing career - and it starts with my blog, Critically Correct.
Critically Correct has traditionally been my personal blog first and foremost, as it will continue to be. In recent months my blog has reflected my life a bit too accurately, however: stale, slow, and monotonous. Since I left behind the frantic pace and schedules of college in 2008, I have settled into a routine of an eight to five job without much excitement elsewhere in my life. This has left me with very little to write about.
I feel that my writing is at its strongest when I am at my most active and my most creative. My life in recent months has been lacking these. Where is the excitement of the bustling BGSU campus or imagination of the love-struck teenager I was in high school? The experiences and imagination of my younger years provided plenty of inspiration for my writing. I have become complacent in my life; lethargic in the extreme. In December of 2009 I finally began to see this reflected in my writing on Critically Correct, and I had to do something about it.
Welcome to a highly refined, completely focused Critically Correct. You will still see me ramble and rant sometimes, but I have a strong desire to write with a purpose and a passion. When I publish from week to week I will focus on one among a handful of common, reoccurring topics. I'm making a strong effort to focus on the quality of my writing as well. Words, sentences, and paragraphs can quickly de-evolve into gibberish if they lack a certain amount of thought and care, which is why I intend to be very critical of my own writing before hitting that "Publish Post" button.Another area of change for Critically Correct is the breadth of content. For the past two years or so I have been carefully screening what I write about and what I keep close to myself. In many cases I held back more than I wanted, and I consider all future blog entries to be firmly in free-for-all territory. Will some of what I have to say upset a few people here and there? Oh, most definitely. However, Critically Correct has not been the same since I have not been the same, and being able to free myself from artificial censoring constraints means I can post more frequently, with my interests, and with much more passion.
I can't wait to share a great 2010 with you.
B3 out.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)