We need man-sized fruit snacks

Fruit snacks are delicious. These bite-sized bits of glory take anyone back to their elementary school days. There's a fundamental problem with them, though.

They're meant for kids.

Really, peruse the snack aisle at your local grocery store and you'll find boxes of Gushers, Welch's fruit snacks, Betty Crocker, General Mills; basically every brand of fruit snacks are packaged in small doses.

Nutrition facts and serving sizes aside, basically every 20+ year old male will agree that they could pound down at least 3 of these small packages in a sitting:

I guarantee that most guys love fruit snacks. I also guarantee that the first company that makes and markets some big, man-sized portions of fruit snacks will almost make millions of dollars.

Dear Subway: please use different knives

I love sub sandwiches. To me, it's like having a delicious sandwich of choice elongated to suit your appetite. Most people, myself included, completely dig Subway's subs. Delicious, fresh veggies topped off on good cuts of meat... I'd go there every day if I could.

But something really gets me about Subway.

For those that don't know me, I have a distaste for most condiments. Like others, I can't stand the sight, or smell, of things like ketchup, mustard, or mayonnaise. It gets to gag-reflex points. I send food back when these things are on it (and I always ask to have my food without).

Mayonnaise especially gets me. It's basically disgusting fat, right? Why do people eat it? Practically the whole world has agreed that mayo is disgusting.

For what it's worth, yes I have tried Miracle Whip. Yes, it is equally disgusting, you sick people. It's like smoking clove cigarettes, it really doesn't make anything better for you.

Back to the topic at hand, Subway. See, Subway is very good about keeping gross things like mayo off my sandwich. Still, other sick people get these condiments on theirs.

Subway provides the service of cutting your footlong sub in half, so you can easily hold your sandwich while eating it. See where I'm going with this?

They use the same knife for all sandwiches.

See, Subway, you're missing something. I asked for no mayo. The knife you used (which they don't ever wash, and always looks like it's caked with everyone else's condiments from their sandwiches) to cut my sub was used to cut the person's sub in line before me.

And they asked for mayo. You put that knife in mayo. I do not want mayo on my sub. That knife, full of mayo, went through my mayo-less sandwich.

So, Subway, change this. What if someone has severe allergies to disgusting things like mayo? You're killing this segment of the population, and making me tear off pieces of my sub, carefully examining for any gross white stuff.

I want a two-knife rule for every Subway. One for the mayo subs, and one for the rest. Make it happen!

Ten Top Wii MotionPlus Ideas

Recently, I posted a pretty rad editorial @thewiire detailing top ideas I had for MotionPlus gaming. Be sure to check it out and leave your own ideas in the comments!

Additionally, Chris Holzworth is starting up a column with us, and his first one is live on the site as well. It centers around what Nintendo needs to do at E3 to gain him back.

Or, as Chris would say, give him a "nerdgasm." Check that out, too, and give him some love.

PR Photo Project Status

For Photo Journalism class, we were asked to work on getting our photos published.

Taking a step beyond that, I have pitched my photo essay project (entirely based around video game controllers and our interactions with them) to a contributor to The Game Reviews, a video game website. The contributer has an irregular column devoted to photos of vintage game collections, allowing gamers to contribute photos of their collections.

I linked him to my photo essay on my Flickr page, found here.

No word yet on when my essay will appear on the site, but the odds seem very good.

Photo Essay: Video Game Controllers

The goal of this photo essay was to explore control input in video games and our interaction with them on a base level. The photo collection can be found on my Flickr page here.

The photo collection and minimalistic captions representing each photo demonstrate a few key factors in how we approach video games. While some initially view the photos as hunks of plastic for child's play, the intent of the essay is to note the way we as players interact with the controllers. To approach the controllers as the "handheld medium" that separates video games from other art mediums like film is essential in understanding this unique interactive entertainment form.

Photo captions tell the real story, with the earliest dated controller described as "Direction pad, two face buttons, two mode buttons. Two thumbs to operate." In this classic Nintendo controller, players can use their simple input, often a combination of four cardinal directions and two face buttons to enjoy a large variety (literally hundreds) of games. This same controller is used to direct Mario to a power-up in Super Mario Bros., charge up a super spike with Eddie in Super Spike V'Ball, defeat Ridley as gaming's original heroine, Samus, in Metroid, and explore a vast land and down foes with magic by issuing commands in Dragon Warrior.

Additionally, this photo essay raises the question, "What about the future of game controllers?" If Nintendo's recent advancements are any question, controllers will only continue to tie in to more natural forms of human interactivity. While old technology is being used in new ways (Nintendo's Zapper and Wii Remote both utilizing infrared, twenty years apart), things like accelerometers and gyroscopes bring real human movement to many video games in a big way. Companies like Emotive are developing headsets that measure brain activity, and whispers of Microsoft planning on using human shadows hint at "controllers" on the horizon.

For the time being, of course, a few thumbs and fingers seem to draw players into their games just fine.

While intense graphics, blippy-yet-masterfully composed soundtracks, and addictive online elements pervade the minds of gamers across the globe, the input control connecting players to their games undoubtedly rules the medium. These photos and their captions highlight that fact.

Portrait Project

The purpose of the Portrait Project was to use visual cues to challenge our assumptions of our photo's subjects. In this case, we were assigned to step out of our comfort zone and photograph (in my case) one individual we did not personally know, and another that we do personally know a certain number of times.

Using common visual cues, most should be able to note the uncomfortable looks that the photo subjects give off. Whether a viewer is considering the environment of the photos, in this instance we consider a lobby and outside an elevator, or their posture, clothes, and behavior, they make a judgment on whether the photographer seems to be acquainted with them.

My Flickr page contains all the photos in the project, but the final contact sheet used is seen on the left. I arranged each picture, four for each individual, to line up more symmetrically for the viewer to compare them. In my presentation to our photo journalism class, we found that viewers of the photos were split on their judgment.

The truth of the photos here are that the man outside the elevator is my roommate, while the girl in the lobby I am not acquainted with. I instructed my roommate to have his backpack with him and look as though he was waiting for the elevator in order to go to campus. By doing so and framing the photographs in an "impromptu" manner, letting him naturally look uncomfortable (as he surely was), the two subjects looked similar. Therefore, my project demonstrates that these visual cues may be misleading when the photographer chooses to mislead, as I did.

Document Project

My plan for documenting a night of myself consuming a decent amount of alcohol, and slowly descending into a drunken stupor seemed to pan out for my Document Project. The shots of each drink consumed led to ultimately finding my bed as a safe haven from a long night.

In documenting each alcoholic drink or shot that I took, I attempted to keep the same general frame for the photos, with a few unexpected exceptions. Most shots were "in-action," with each drink being visibly consumed.

The Document Project culminated in a few essential editing choices. With the low-lit situations I was often in, brightness and contrast levels were carefully monitored. No photos needed to be cropped, but they were arranged in a "contact sheet" format, with a sizable amount of white space separating each photo. The order of the drinks, then, can be "read" from left to right.

The final version, seen below, can also be viewed in various sizes on my Flickr page here.

Light photograph

In my photo, I utilized the Szarkowski element of Frame. It was a cloudy day, and I chose to photograph the "slanted" exterior windows on the second floor of the Union. While, to us, the windows appear to be perfectly straight, the angle of the natural light and slight bends and tilts of the windows reveals a "bendy" reflection of the roof above.

These "bendy" lines greatly contrast with the very straight lines of the rest of the photo. The windows and building itself lead off of the picture. That, combined with the use of nearby buildings, help define the frame. To me, it helped construct the feeling of very square, straight architecture around the viewer, yet the light from the sun (what little there was that day), found the details in each bend of the window.

When dealing with the framing, I was careful to ensure that the lines of the building were leading in the directions I intended. Though the building was leading off the picture, a series of vertical lines were sort of "intertwining" the rest of the picture. I felt that the use of these lines would help lead a viewer's eyes around the photo.

This photo didn't take too much editing at all. There were a few touch-ups to ensure the levels and contrast settings were correctly showing the scene as I saw it when I took the photo to begin with. Aside from that, little cropping or editing was needed.

New Place = Same Place?

Because I know, and have personally talked to, other Mike Suszeks in the world, I took the time to register www.mikesuszek.com.  And guess what?  That's where you are now!  At least, where you WILL be after all the transitioning happens.

That also means, I have at least four emails I can be contacted at (spoiler alert, they all forward to my Gmail).  So if you want to gripe about the things I write here, or want to tell me you loved the most recent podcast, shoot an email to mikesuszek@mikesuszek.com, which will wind up going to mikesuszek@gmail.com.

I know, I want you to type my name as many times as possible.  It's an ego thing.

So bookmark this place if you're interested in my life.  If you're TOO interested in my life, follow my Twitter.  If that's not enough... well a man can only do so much.

Peace!

-Mike

Flickr photos!

I'll be posting my Flickr updates here, primarily for my Photo Journalism class.

To start, my Flickr address is here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikesuszek/

My first (really bad) uploaded photo can be found here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikesuszek/3251551884/

And if you want to check out more of what I do (obviously better than taking photos), go to The Wiire, and check out my first product video review, and feel free to listen to the newest Wiire Podcast this week, Episode 123!

-Mike