The postering ban is lifted in 2 hours. Let’s see what I have in stock!

• 11 O REILLY Owls – Deployed in the DCC/CII Walkway
• 3 YA REILLY Owls – Deployed in the DCC/CII Walkway
• 2 O/YA REILLY Combos – Deployed in the DCC
• 12 2 Vector Imitations (10 Union stamped) – Deployed in the Union
• 3 Clean and Green – Deployed in the DCC
• 5 4 RHAM – One deployed by Java++
• 7 RNE Imitations – Deployed in my room

I’m definitely going to print more Piggies. The RNE imitations probably won’t go out as they have improper times listed (and most of the signs they imitate are gone). I might try to expand my use of the Clean and Green signs on recycling bins.

Nominations are due at 3:00 PM on Saturday! 125 nominations required for Senator positions.

Due to an error in the print room, I now have in my possession 20 captionless O RLY and YA RLY Birds. These Birds were printed on a Xerox Phaser 7750 and were graded as being mint quality by an Image Macro specialist. The lack of captions on these Birds makes them prime candidates for propagating old and new memes alike.

Any parties interested in accquiring ownership of any or all of these birds should email me at cuttlefish@cuttlefishtech.com.

Today I introduced a new workhorse sign to supplement my Vector party ripoff signs. The new signs are derived from some of WRPI’s signs, which I quite enjoy. I deployed 13 of the signs in new, distinct locations around campus. Since room is getting scarce on some of the Campus Notification boards, I put one of my posters underneath a poster that is so to be taken down, reserving my spot for the rest of the campaign.

My signs are sporting a new look after it was decided that the “Victor” logo on my previous set of signs infringed on the copyrights of others and was quite confusing to the general public. My “workhorse” signs now sport the official Reilly Hamilton for 2012 Senator logo and a disclaimer explaining that I am unaffiliated with the Vector party. A color version exists solely on my door.

I’ve expanded my coverage area outside of the Student Union; you can now find my primary Reilly Hamilton signs on the JEC and CII. I don’t believe any ended up on the DCC, something which I may correct tomorrow. I’m trying to avoid saturating the campus with my signs; my signs are currently positioned such that it is not possible to see any two of my signs at the same time. I’ve realized rather early that the key to a successful late-stage campaign is real estate. Once a sign is up, it is against the RNE Handbook for anyone else to take it down. I hope to seize more signage areas tomorrow to allow for a more flavorful campaign later in the election season.

I’m also starting my first wave of niche advertising, this time I’m appealing to those who use Hand Sanitizer; a demographic often forgotten about during the campaign process. I will ensure that those still terrified of H1N1 will have a say in student government. I’m also jumping on the Non-Smoking bandwagon with one of my Union based signs; however this is a pilot project limited only to a single sign in the Union lobby.

Reilly Hamilton for 2012 Senator has also gone digital! I snapped a picture of my sign appearing on the Concerto screen in the Student Government Suite this afternoon. Unfortunately, the Student Elections feed on Concerto only appears on a select few screens. Hopefully the feed will appear on a couple more high-traffic feeds (Commons and Sage, especially) as the election season matures.

Campaign season for the 2010 GM Week Elections began today. The Vector party was quick to smother the campus with far too many posters. My campaign for 2012 Senator began on a much smaller scale in the Student Union and surrounding area.

Please note that I am completely unaffiliated with the Vector party; my campaign signs are meant to parody their signs and bring a bit of levity to the campaign process.

Last year, I wrote a PHP, GD, and MYSQL powered hockey title generator. It reads data from a MYSQL database containing player info and stats, pulls logos and portraits from my hard drive, and spits out a .tga file that’s ready to be loaded into our video switcher’s title memory. I’ve been making constant improvements ever since.

Coming in to the 2009-2010 Hockey Season, I decided to give the RPI TV Hockey Titles a makeover. Sure, they looked a lot better, but the 45-degree-rotated-right-angle look didn’t match with the rest of the RPI TV titles. I also made the switch from Franklin Gothic Demi Cond font to Gotham Bold, which had readability improvements but created space issues.

So now, I’ve gone back and combined elements of the 2009 titles with the 2008 style edges-with-a-slope-of-2 and white-gradient-fading-upward design into one glorious bastard child. Gotham Bold goes on a diet to become Gotham Narrow Bold. Font size increases due to the new found horizontal space.

Here’s all the various iterations of my PHP-generated titles below.

2008 version (160 pixels tall, takes up twice as much memory in the video mixer’s memory):

2009 Rev 00:

2009 Rev 01

Previously on CuttlefishTech, I printed out a giant poster of Dr. Carothers and hung it in my dorm room.

Today on CuttlefishTech, the poster of Dr. Carothers took a trip to DCC 318.

The poster was taped to the wall at approximately 11:50. There were several students in the class at the time who chuckled as I taped it up. Dr. Carothers arrived at around 12:02 and began teaching.

He handed back papers for quite a while.

I tried to get him to turn around by approaching from behind him to collect my paper, but I had no luck.

Class continued for about an hour before Carothers called for a 5 minute break. As he turned around to leave the classroom for a bit, he spotted it. He did a quick double take before looking back at the class smiling. The entire class burst into applause and cheers. He asked if it had been there the whole time, which it had, and he stated he quite liked it. He then asked if he could have it. “No!” I shouted, “That thing cost me $12!”. He remarked about how that was a lot of money to spend on him, and asked what I was going to do with it. “It’s going in my room!” I said, which caught him a bit off guard. He said something about what other types of things were in my room before looking at the poster again, smiling at the class, and then walking out of the classroom. When class resumed, he continued to stare at it from time to time.

I retrieved the poster at the end of class without incident or comment.

Setlist (10/18/2009 at Northern Lights in Clifton Park, NY):

1. Growing Old Is Getting Old
2. Well Thought Out Twinkles
3. Sort Of
4. There’s No Secrets This Year
5. The Royal We
6. Little Lover’s So Polite
7. It’s Nice to Know You Work Alone
8. Future Foe Scenarios
9. Kissing Families + (There’s No Way of Knowing…Which Direction We’re Going)
10. Catch and Release
11. Booksmart Devil (first 1:00 or so)
12. Panic Switch
13. Lazy Eye
Encore
14. Substitution
15. Creation Lake
16. Common Reactor

The last time I saw the Pickups (8/22/2009 at the Washington County Fairgrounds in Hillsboro, OR), the setlist was nearly identical. They did not play Substitution (or Booksmart Devil), so there were only two songs during the Encore. The Hillsboro show was a benefit concert (Pet Aid 2009) in support of local animal hospitals, and was played on an outdoor stage at the Fairgrounds. Cage the Elephant opened for SSPU at both shows, but the Hillsboro show also featured Manchester Orchestra instead of An Horse.

First of all, An Horse. I didn’t really pay much attention to them, but what I heard seemed formulaic and repetitive. I can imagine the studio recordings would be a bit more polished and perhaps more layered with cutesy sound effects, but their live performance left some to be desired. I preferred Manchester Orchestra as the supporting act.

Cage the Elephant was a bit more eccentric than last time, which is saying quite a lot considering they were already completely crazy the last time I saw them.

Let’s see…

First, a bit more about the CBS6 piece seen below. I was walking around campus Thursday after classes when I spotted the CBS6 satellite/live broadcast truck with its huge antenna high in the sky next to the footbridge. I headed over to the RPI TV room to grab a camera and see what was up with the news team. I also planned on collecting some footage of Freshman Elections in the DCC and Commons as well as begin my hunt for the elusive Alby, the albino squirrel who lives near the Alumni house. I grabbed Z5U 02 and proceeded to walk outside to where CBS6 was conducting interviews. I recorded footage of the reporter interviewed a pair of students. The reporter clearly noticed, and asked me a couple quick questions about RPI TV. He then asked if I wanted to be interviewed. “Uhh, I guess” I said. He asked me a couple questions about Swine Flu (none of which he used in the edit) and then a couple about my coverage of Swine Flu and other campus events for RPI TV (which he ended up using). After the interview, his cameraman (or photographer, as they’re called in the biz), wanted some B-roll shots of me walking around filming stuff with the camera. I obliged, and he recorded me walking over the footbridge, supposedly recording the campaign signs on the handrails. I asked if he had all the footage he needed, and he said he was good. I thanked him, and walked away. Apparently, his camera was still rolling, as he used that final thank you in the news report.

My thoughts on the piece are as follows. I’m really quite surprised how it turned out. The editor didn’t use any bits of the student interviews (besides the one frat guy), which I found strange. Instead, he added a bit of narrative to the report by adding my (mostly fabricated) story, which had little if anything to do with Swine flu. The footage of me walking over the footbridge is really quite strange. I’m amazed he added the “thank you” part at the end. It has very little context, and overall seems really strange. The “whose audience hangs in the balance” is one of the more awesome parts of the interview. I hope my audience doesn’t die from Swine Flu.

Last Friday was the first cultural production for RPI TV. The production in question was Cultural Pride Night, an annual collection of entertainment from various corners of the world put on by Lambda Upsilon Lambda. I was on Camera for the first time this year (strange!). And I was on a special camera too; I was seated in the first row of the audience with a Z5U in my lap, gathering close up shots and floor shots. It was a bit perilous, as since I was handheld the camera shook quite a bit. I think I murdered a couple shots by doing stupid things when my camera was live (especially towards the end, I believe I was on when I decided to sit back in my chair, which probably resulted in an awesome floor shot. Hopefully it’ll be up on our website in a couple days.

Saturday was our first Hockey Game of the season! It was a Women’s Exhibition game though, which means it couldn’t really matter less. Regardless, it was a great first experience for our rookies to get an idea of how a hockey game is run. We cycled through three different directors (which, on an unrelated note, is still something I have not done) and tried some new camera positions. We now have the ability to get an awesome overhead shot from the catwalks above the ice. I did titles as usual, which was the first use of the new style 2009-2010 graphics. I’ve got a huge list of upgrades I want to make to the titling system. Eventually, I’d like to track stats live, and streamline the ability to update titles. I’m still constrained by the terrible Panasonic MX-Navi software though… The game itself was quite a blowout, with the Engineers beating the team of high schoolers 6-1.

During the Hockey game, I was watching a live feed of Petit Le Mans that I was streaming from the capture card in my desktop situated in my dorm room. The beginning couple hours of the race were great; a lot of action taking place on track between Audi and Peugeot, and battles all over the place in GT2. The race ended up being a huge disappointment, however, as the skies opened up and drenched the track in three inches of rain, red-flagging the race. There was good news though, next year’s 6 hour race at Laguna Seca will take place in late May, so I’ll be able to attend (as long as I’m not living in the North East, in which case I’ll go to Limerock instead).

I went shopping Sunday and bought a lot of Paul Newman lemonade. By Monday evening, I’d already consumed a half gallon. Yum! I can’t remember doing anything else Sunday. F1 also happened, but I’d rather forget about the race. Highlights were Glock finishing second and Vettel beating Brawn. Lowlights were Vettel finishing 4th, Raikkonen outside the points, drama for Rosberg, and Sutil crashing out.

Monday was fairly routine; class, DDR, dinner, homework, sleep. I added some more decorations to my room; the tracks of the 2009 Formula 1 season now adorn my walls near the ceiling.