Mr. Sean Plays: The Legend of Zelda

I'm back and hopefully I'll be a little more consistent in writing up some blog posts. If you have any suggestions for what I should write about, please comment on any of my blog posts or on Facebook, thank you!

So recently while I've been looking for a job since I finally completed all graduation requirements successfully I've been playing a few video games. Titles include The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX. As I was playing these games a few thoughts came to me:

1. I should ask if people like Mario or Zelda better.
2. I should write about my experiences with some games.
3. I should try to speedrun a few more games besides Portal.

So far I've only completed the first thought and was surprised to see that in my Facebook poll that LoZ (Legend of Zelda) beat Mario 62 percent to 38 percent. I expected more people to pick the seemingly more accessible and ubiquitous Mario, but either way one goes, you can't go wrong with playing a Mario game or a Zelda game.

As for the second point, this post will be the first of two discussing my experiences with games. This post will focus on games within the Legend of Zelda series while the next post will focus on Mario games. To any avid gamers out there, I only speak from my own experiences with the games I've played.

So I'll start with the game that started it all for the Legend of Zelda: The Legend of Zelda. Released in 1986 on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), it was touted for a large overworld called Hyrule that the player could explore from the first button press and a less than linear style of playthrough. Even with three hearts and a wooden sword you could travel to a mountain, a lake, a graveyard, a forest puzzle, and most of the dungeons even if you aren't prepared for defeating enemies. My experience with it was through the Virtual Console (VC) release on the Nintendo 3DS, so I never had the awe and amazement a child of the 1980s would have had playing the game for the first time. Anyways, in my opinion, the combat system was a bit lacking in that the sword attack is a basic forward stab and the enemies had to be in the right place at the right time for an attack to land, also the Bubble enemies were very annoying as they were invincible in this game. I recommend playing this game only if you want to see where it all started or if you want less hand-holding. There's also a Second Quest if you find the main quest too easy.

Next I'll discuss The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX. This is a Game Boy Color game that is available on the Nintendo e-shop for the 3DS. The DX stands for "deluxe" which in this case means the game is in color as the original Link's Awakening was in monochrome for the original Game Boy. Instead of traveling around Hyrule, Link is tasked with going around Koholint Island to collect eight instruments to wake up the Wind Fish and there's no Zelda to be saved. To the people who wanted a Zelda game on a handheld console, you could say it was a Dream come true. Although the sequence of the story is a bit more linear than the original LoZ, the large map still allowed for much exploration. Also the soundtrack was good for 8-bit chiptunes.

Now I'll discuss what more than a few gamers claim is the G.O.A.T: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. This was Link's big splash into 3D and gamers and critics alike loved it. I have the 3DS version of the game, so I still have a Master Quest to complete. Anyways, Link starts out believing he is a Kokiri boy since he's only known his home of the Kokiri Forest up until the Great Deku Tree, the guardian of the Kokiri tells a fairy named Navi to guide Link to him. Link learns of his true destiny as a hero and is set off to meet Zelda and gather three stones to open the Temple of Time to retrieve the Master Sword, also known as the Blade of Evil's Bane. Along the way he gathers the stones and makes friends with the rocky Gorons and the aquatic Zora while saving Hyrule from evil. Once Link has gathered the stones and the Ocarina of Time from a Zelda fleeing the evil Ganondorf (the Gerudo form of Ganon), he pulls the Master Sword from his pedestal but Ganondorf manages to infiltrate the spirit realm and only manages to obtain a third of the Triforce he was seeking. Seven years later, an adult Link sets about Hyrule to gather medallions and wake up the sages so that they may defeat Ganondorf. In my opinion, the hype about Ocarina of Time is justified as it is a great game, I enjoyed most of the combat, the puzzles were good, the soundtrack has memorable tunes, and energy ball tennis with Ganondorf is much better with an empty bottle. I may make a separate post specifically for Ocarina of Time, including my progress through the Master Quest.

Finally, I'll end this post with the Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons games. Released on the Game Boy Color in 2001, like Link's Awakening DX, I have the 3DS VC copies of the games. These games depart from the traditional Zelda formula in some ways while keeping faithful to the formula in others. Instead of taking place in Hyrule like other Zelda games, OoA (Ages) takes place in Labrynna and the person to save is the oracle Nayru, the Oracle of Ages, while OoS takes place in Holodrum and Din, the Oracle of Seasons, is the one who needs to be saved. OoA's main gimmick is time travel, similarly to OoT, except in OoA, the key item is a harp rather than the Master Sword as it is in OoT. Even the final bosses are different as instead of the formulaic Ganon, OoA has the sorceress Veran while OoS has Link fighting Onox who isn't what he looks like at first. I have a lot more to say about the Oracle games, but I'll have to save it for a future post.

I have played other Zelda games, but I have either not completed them, or only had access to them thanks to my mom who loves Zelda. Hopefully one day Nintendo will have GameCube and Game Boy Advance games re-released on the Virtual Console or something similar, I wouldn't mind playing some of my late childhood favorites and try games I haven't tried before. If you have any suggestions for Zelda games I should play, please comment on this post or wherever I share this post. Thanks for reading!

Podcasts? Mr. Sean Listens to them? Really?

My Walkman mp3 Player that allows me to listen to podcasts

Recently I've gotten into listening to podcasts. My interest in podcasts came up suddenly this week although I've listened to a few before. I figured that I could stay connected to things that interest me and learn more by listening to podcasts. Here are some of the podcasts I listen/have listened to.

The Art of Manliness

The Art of Manliness podcast is an extension of the website The Art of Manliness (artofmanliness.com). Hosted by Brett McKay, episodes are released weekly and in each episode Brett along with a guest explore various topics related to the idea of manliness such as proper etiquette, exercise advice, and ways to approach challenges in life. This podcast does post weekly as of the writing of this post.

The Food Chain

The Food Chain (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p028z2z0) is a podcast courtesy of the BBC World Service. This podcast is a good way of feeding my hunger for knowledge. Also, for those who know me well, food! I've listened to two episodes so far. One focused on the culinary innovations of Chinatowns worldwide while the other focused on McDonald's in Asia. This podcast does post weekly at the time this post was written.

Mostly Weather

Mostly Weather (https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/mostly-weather) is a podcast courtesy of the Met Office in the United Kingdom. Twenty-six episodes so far where a group of Met Office meteorologists discuss anything related to weather. I learned that the first use of the word "forecast" was in 1861 by Admiral Robert FitzRoy of the Royal Navy. At time of writing, Mostly Weather does not have a regular uploading schedule but the newest episode is from June 2018.  

NHK World Radio Japan

NHK World Radio Japan (https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/radio/about/  this URL links to a landing page where one can listen to Radio Japan live, on demand, or via podcast) is available in English, French, Arabic, and other languages. Daily uploads give the listener short updates on news from Japan, the greater Asia-Pacific region, and the world. I picked NHK World Radio Japan as I like watching NHK World Newsline on TV and on their website.

WeatherBrains

WeatherBrains (http://weatherbrains.com/) is a weekly podcast by the well known and legendary (at least to his fans and viewers) James Spann. Available on YouTube and via podcasting programs, each episode features Spann and a bunch of meteorologists that discuss all things meteorology, similarly to MostlyWeather from across the pond, except that James Spann also has his job as chief meteorologist at ABC 33/40 in Birmingham, AL to keep him busy separately from the WeatherBrains podcast. With 653 episodes and counting, I may not be able to catch up on all the episodes.

WittyClothes Productions

The final podcast mentioned in this blog is responsible for my interest in podcasts despite the fact that I first watched them before I got deep into podcasts. WittyClothes Productions (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX7m3CpZz5YU257wM9G8gDw) was my first introduction to podcasts in general, though I watched rather than purely listened to this podcast. The dynamic duo of my friend Cailin Clothier and her friend Dara Wittman have produced podcasts that focus on reacting to and commentary on various shows such as the Legend of Korra and Orphan Black. Thank you very much Cailin and Dara for getting me into listening to podcasts.

Anyways, if you have any suggestions for podcasts that you think I would like, please post them in the comments section. Thank you!

What has Mr. Sean been up to recently?

Francis Ow sure had some cool ideas for Origami models.

Sorry for the silence on my blog in the past two months. I just have not been inspired to write a blog post until now. I figured that at least a few people would appreciate knowing what I'm up to anymore. I figured I'd try to leave out the more boring parts of my summer as they would bore me even more. Anyways I can say that my goal of reading the entire Bible in 2018 is going along quite nicely, even though I did have to catch up because I was not diligent enough some days or there were exams to worry about earlier. The hard part is seeing that I'm making progress in terms of days the Bible was read while seeing how few books I have read so far. I've also been writing daily Haiku except these are only haiku in syllabic form, that is the first and last line comprising of five syllables and the middle line seven. Some of my Facebook friends with memories as good as or better than mine will remember that I tried to accomplish these goals in 2017 but failed after a few months. This year I decided I'll be less of a failure to myself.  I've also been sporadically active in origami, more so in re-creating modular models than anything else. I may write up a few posts on origami I've folded previously under the guise of Throwback Thursday. Though my ultimate goal for the year is to fold 1000 tiny swans and 1000 tiny cranes. Each crane and swan will be folded from paper that is 3 centimeters by 3 centimeters. In the world of math, I probably should not be working on Khan Academy math, but I figured it would be good for me to refresh some of the older skills I have learned, though I should focus more on reviewing calculus as it is very relevant to meteorology. I've also recently been working on solving problems from Project Euler. Project Euler is a website that has hundreds of math problems that people are encouraged to write computer programs to solve. I'll admit that I've only solved 11 problems so far out of the nearly 630. So far I've been using Python to good results in under a minute.

Anyways, I'll try to set for myself more deadlines for writing up posts and try to be less boring than I currently am at the moment. If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to hear from me, let me know!

Teacher Appreciation Day 2018: A Long Look Back

Over the past nearly twenty years, I have interacted with many teachers in various forms of schooling. No matter how little or how large their impact was on me, I appreciate each and every last one of them. I apologize if I forget anybody as I have to rack my brains for twenty years worth of memories and facts. Thank you everyone for your dedication, hard work, and devotion to your students and I'm sorry if I ever gave you a hard time. If I missed any teachers that I have been a student under, please let me know in the comments. Also apologies if any names were misspelled or if any names have changed.

From Alconbury Elementary School (Preschool):

Mrs. Hendry, Ms. Cummins, Ms. Toddy, and I will thank some Airmen that I'm sorry to have not remembered their names but were important in my preschool days.

From Village East Elementary School (K and 1):

Mrs. Sheffer, Mrs. Argotsinger, Ms. Kathy, Mr. Fairchild, Mrs. Tebow

From Mission Viejo Elementary School (2 - 4):

Mrs. Gallozzi, Ms. Vlach, Ms. Parker, Mr. Craig, Mr. Greg, Mrs. Orlovsky, Mr. Anthony

From Pershing Hill Elementary School (4 and 5):

Mrs. Bissell, Mrs. McVitty, Ms. Dennis, Mr. Armstrong, Mrs. Jerome, Mrs. Wolfe

From MacArthur Middle School:

Ms. Brooks, Mrs. Steck, Mrs. Williams, Mrs. Friend, Ms. Nash, Mrs. Moulis, Ms. Valentine, Mr. Mitten, Mr. Thompson, Mr. Belcastro, Ms. Rendina, Mr. Wilson, Ms. Stendardi, Mrs. Pinckney, Ms. Harris, Mr. Denton, Mrs. Cullingford, Mrs. Jones, Mr. Harvey, Mr. Williams, Mrs. Fach, Mrs. Nedab, Mr. France

From Meade High School:

Ms. K, Mme Sargent, Mrs. Wilborn, Mr. Brady, Mr. Nagel, Mr. Corriero, Mr. Layman, Mr. Freedenberg, Mr. Kilby, Mrs. Molchan, Mr. Hopper, Mr. Brock, Mrs. Stutz, Mr. Pittman, Ms. Evans, M. O'Neill, Mrs. Fitzgerald, Mr. Elliott, Mrs. Blanco, Mr. Ziegler, Mr. McCoy, Mrs. Stratton, Mrs. Schumer, Mrs. Lindsay, Mr. Solomon, Mrs. Dangerfield, Ms. Rogers

From Anne Arundel Community College:

Dr. Iyengar, Dr. Whisenhant

From Millersville University:

Dr. Umble, Dr. Russell-Loretz, Dr. Maxwell, Mr. Muenz, Dr. Tacka, Dr. Nolan, Dr. Rineer, Dr. Hardy, Professor Crivaro, Dr. Heitmann, Dr. DeCaria, Dr. Kumar, Dr. Clark, Dr. Yalda, Dr. Sikora, Dr. Liffick, Dr. Moine, Dr. Zhan, Dr. Han, Dave Fitzgerald, Dr. Blum, Dr. Ma, Dr. Ikenaga, Dr. X Cátepillan, Dr. Buchanan, Dr. Schultz, Dr. Shao, Dr. Fenwick, Dr. Corkery

Special Mentions:

Even though these people were not my regular teachers, they still had an impact on my education, so thank you every single last substitute teacher that I have ever had, too many to name, but all dependable when a teacher has to be out for any reason. Thank you also to the various student teachers that I met during my high school band days at Meade.

Like I said, if I left anybody out or spelled anybody's name incorrectly, I am very sorry. To all the teachers, thank you!

A History of Music and I, Part Six

Welcome to part 6 of A History of Music and I, this post will focus on high school concert band between 10th and 12th grades and All County Band for those years also. So freshman year band was interesting, but there was more in store for me as an upperclassman. My sophomore year introduced to me what would become a regular fixture until I graduated: student teachers. Each student teacher was around for a semester and each student teacher had their own way of going about music. A few of them even got teaching gigs at schools in the county, most notably Mr. Scott who took over when Mr. Kilby took up the mantle of band director at Severna Park High right after I graduated from high school, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Back to my days in the band. Another year of band at Meade High meant another year of at least one John Philip Sousa march, which was fine by me as I enjoyed his sound. So I don't remember as much of the repertoire we performed during those three years (thankfully I kept all the concert programs, ha ha!), but I do remember Mr. Scott leading the band through Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, which was interesting because there were so many time signature changes, and not all of them were 4/4 to 3/4, there were measures of 6/4 and 5/4 to contend with, and I'm pretty sure there were some time signatures where the eight was in the musical "denominator". Band festivals were interesting as we performed to be judged, but that meant I was out of school for the day and eating not school food. I seem to remember events better than what I played, I'm not sure how I feel about not remembering everything though. Anyways, I was in All County Band each year. Sophomore year All County Band we got our chance to play A+, a piece in which a few mistakes are allowed and mathematically calculated to ensure that even with mistakes the band still performed at an A+ level. Junior year All County Band was held at my high school, which meant I missed school while at school, whoo! Meade High band tended to do well with the amount of musicians in the All County Band while I attended high school. I forgot to mention in my last post that at graduation, the band and the orchestra play the Pomp and Circumstance procession, the recession, and a performance piece. The procession always took the longest as the graduating seniors were told to walk in at a stately pace while I enjoyed the recession more as there was more fanfare in the music and everyone had a pep in their step. I played all three pieces between 9th and 11th grades while in 12th I played only the performance piece. I never made first chair, but that was okay, 2nd and 3rd chair was good in a section of 12-15 clarinets.

Stay tuned, I'll be trying to recall my jazz band career next.

A History of Music and I, Part Five

Welcome to the fifth part of a series of posts documenting my history with music. This will focus on ninth grade in 2009 and 2010.

After middle school, I was anticipating high school band and for the first time, I would be performing in marching band. I was told by Mr. Kilby the band director that there was need for low brass, so I borrowed a euphonium for a few weeks over the summer, but when it came time to start band camp, I was still playing the clarinet, which would prove to be a blessing physically. I got the music for the year's marching show and tried to tackle it before band camp started, but it proved to be an interesting mix of easy and challenging before I was told to memorize it. Memorize the entire show's music? That sounded like a tall order, yet I managed to eventually get there, but I'm getting ahead of myself. So the summer passed by quickly, and after a vacation that I may recall in a future post, I was off to band camp at Meade High School. I brought my clarinet, my music, and a pencil (always bring a pencil) with me, ready to learn.  I met the band and I saw many people who attended the other (Meade) middle school that feeds into the high school (I attended MacArthur Middle). The drum majors proceeded to enter the practice field and command the band into formation so that we'd get the day started right. We proceeded to learn the basics throughout the week and get started on the show. There was so much to learn such as drill, flanking, and of course marching. Often the instrument groups split up to do small group type stuff, so I got to spend time with the other clarinetists. If there was one thing I would change about Meade Marching Band, it would have been more self-discipline among the individuals in the band. Only if we were more self-disciplined, we wouldn't have been yelled at by the senior drum major as much, which in this case the senior drum major yelling for us to get to set is a mix of scary and funny at the same time. I'll just say a petite lady yelling with ferocity is to be taken seriously.

So band camp passed and we had a cookout where the band performed some stuff and then everyone feasted then school started shortly after that. The concert (or was it symphonic?) band was a lot larger than the marching band and I learned that the senior drum major played the clarinet just like me! Concert band for the most part was like band class in middle school, full band practice, clarinet practice, and some tests. Though before I go back to marching band, the repertoire for the concert band was very cool to me with pieces such as Sleigh Ride, the Liberty Bell March (or Monty Python theme as some people remember it), and Malagueña.

In Marching band, we participated in competitions where we were judged and graded on our performance. I won't reveal any scores though, my bad! We also participated in the Jessup Day Parade and played at home football games and showed off our work. The competitions had us traveling all over the place and me being a hungry 14 year old, I always sought out the food stands as soon as I was able to. I'll just say that Broadneck High School and Frawley Stadium would be stiff competition food wise. We managed to eke in to the ACCs (Atlantic Coast Championship, even though when I say ACC I mean the conference) and managed to score an 80 at our final competition of the year. Not bad!

Shortly after marching band ended, the band director Mr. Kilby passed out forms for interest in jazz band. I didn't act immediately upon the first offer, but when Mr. Kilby needed more sax, I was interested and he let me borrow a school instrument. I'll save jazz band for a future post.

Sorry for the wall of text, but there were so many memories made my freshman year. I'd also like to thank Mr. Kilby for giving me many opportunities to further myself, the clarinet section for the community and camaraderie, and Kaitlyn, the aforementioned Drum Major for being a great leader and eventually a great friend. Thank you y'all!

I have decided to split the next posts in this series as follows: One more post for marching band (high school and college), one post for jazz band, one post for my instruments, and one post for concert band. The jazz band post will be released first and the instruments post will be my final post in the series.

Also, I made it to All County Band for the third time.

A History of Music and I, Part Four

I apologize for a lack of a picture to go with this blog post, and I have changed my mind and this post will focus on 7th and 8th grade years. There were two developments in my music career, one regarding piano and one regarding clarinet. About the piano, my third piano teacher decided to go pro rather than be a teacher, so we parted ways. He taught me some easy and moderate piano classics and the book he got me to use is very cool. Denes Agay's Music for Millions Volume 17 contains a lot of classics that almost any intermediate level and up pianist can play. With regard to band, 7th grade I was still near the top of the clarinet food chain and I did something for the first out of six times, I auditioned and made it in the All County Band. For those who live outside of Maryland (and other states that have county school systems), the public schools are divided by counties and Baltimore city, so the All County band is full of the best of the best musicians in the county. As I get older, I remember less about it than I used to, but I still have the audition music and proof of performance. At the end of the 7th grade, MacArthur Middle School's music program went down to Williamsburg to perform in the morning (and I was the first chair for once) then we spent a fun day at Busch Gardens. I got to ride the Griffon roller coaster, where the main feature is a 3 second overhang before falling down at a 90 degree angle and the Alpengeist, a floorless coaster that was my first.

The 8th grade had me pretty much on top of the Clarinet food chain, well actually I think I was second chair, but close enough. I auditioned for and made it to All County band again, but another challenge was thrown at me. Ms. Nash found some challenging music for me to perform at the county Solo and Ensemble festival. I chose a piece and had to practice with an accompanist. The first and only time I did this, I got a grade of 2, which to me is impressive as I got a medal. If I tried harder, I would have earned a 1 and a chance to perform at the state level Solo and Ensemble festival. The end of the year band trip for 8th grade was to Hersheypark and I got to be the first chair for the second time.

I'm sorry that this post came way later than the first three parts of the history of music and I, but I will try to finish the series within the next two weeks. I'm also making a major change to the original plan, but I will stop at Freshman year of college rather than going to the present day. Thank you for waiting!