How To Be Perfectly Cromulent

How to hug a baby.

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 06:00:05 +0000

How to hug a baby.

How to dress for a job interview.

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:02:05 +0000

How to dress for a job interview.

How not to use quotation marks. Courtesy of Smosh, via The...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:00:06 +0000

How not to use quotation marks.

Courtesy of Smosh, via The Guardian.

How To Hit The High Notes

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 06:00:05 +0000

Losing control at the high end of your vocal range? No pitch, no power, no breath? Life ain’t easy at the top. It takes a lot of practice to master those elusive high notes, but here’s a little technique I was taught once that might make things easier for you. All it needs is a little visualisation… In short, it’s all about the Bounce™.

You will need:

Your voice, in good working order - if you’ve got a sore throat or a weak chest today, try this when you’re feeling better
An awareness of “head voice” and “chest voice”, because some beginners will undoubtedly say “I don’t want to sing with my head, I want to sing with my mouth!”
A chair to sit down in if you need to, in case you get dizzy from practising

Method:

Get your standing posture right. You want to base your posture on yoga’s tadasana, or mountain pose, but instead of keeping your feet together, spread them to shoulder width. Stay relaxed and grounded - to quote Jack Black in ‘School of Rock’, keep it Lucy Goosey, baby.
Spend at least ten minutes warming up. Many a voice has been undone by not warming up properly before practice. It’s always a good idea to work on breath control first. Make yourself consciously aware of your diaphragm, lungs, throat, larynx and mouth. Bring pitch exercises in second - scales, arpeggios and such. May I recommend Melissa Cross’s vocal training series. Yes, it’s designed for extreme vocals, but her warm-up exercises are excellent.
Imagine that each syllable of sound passing your lips is a ball that you need to throw out towards your audience. You want each ball to hit the same place - your audience isn’t moving anywhere. But if you aim your high notes high, they’ll sail right over the audience’s heads! Similarly, if you aim your low notes low, they’ll fall on the floor before they reach the audience. Catastrophic fail!
Visualise the air you use as something heavy, not light. It’s a little backwards, I know, but to get this technique down you need to turn the laws of physics on their head, quite literally. Low notes use a lot of air, so they’re heavy. That’s why they’ll hit the floor quickly if you send them out low. Conversely, high notes are really light, so they’ll float right up into space.
Send low notes out of the window, and bounce high notes off the floor. To put it in gaming terms, you need to invert that Y-axis. The trajectory of your low balls needs to go high - they’re heavier than high notes, so sending them high means they’ll have sunk to the level of your audience when they get that far out. Your high notes need to be bounced of the floor to control their trajectory, just like in the picture above. They’re that much lighter, so they need to go low first, in order to get their upward trajectory under control.
To practise your high note, use a syllable with a lot of attack. I was taught to use “cah” and “co-co-cola” when learning to bounce high notes. A good attack to start the sound off throws the sound out nice and firm, and gets you a good bounce. The initial sound will also expend a lot of air, leaving the rest of the sound-ball lighter and more easy to bounce.
Imagine the sound starting at the top of your throat, right by the roof of your mouth, so that it’s already on a downward trajectory by the time it leaves your mouth. It’s all about visualising that direction.
Try to “smile” with the back of your throat. Sounds a bit strange, I know, but give it a go. See how it raises the back of your throat? It makes a higher starting point for your high notes, which means better bounce!
Don’t attempt high notes in chest voice. Okay, turning the laws of physics the right way up again for a second - you can’t start a high note in a low place. Doesn’t make sense. Just like you wouldn’t bounce a real ball with your hand held low, so you don’t want to bounce from your chest. Always, always start in head voice. If you want to get some power behind it, graduate into your mixed voice as you sustain the note. But don’t forget to start the note up top, or you’ll do yourself some damage.
If your voice is starting to strain, stop right away. If you’re new to practising these high notes, your voice will tire a lot more quickly than usual. When it does, take a deep breath, stop and rest a while. Pain is a warning sign, a red light telling you to stop before you hurt yourself. You don’t want nodules on your vocal cords - those things are nasty. You can always pick up your practice later on, but don’t forget to warm up again when you do!

~~Further reading~~ Useful video pointers from Youtube:

How to Use Redrum in Reason 5. Courtesty of macmixingaudio and...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:02:05 +0000

How to Use Redrum in Reason 5.

Courtesty of macmixingaudio and littlejaundice.

How to draw Pikachu.

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:00:06 +0000

How to draw Pikachu.

How to LOL.

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 06:00:06 +0000

How to LOL.

How to Tell Whether You’re Being Hugged or Stabbed

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 21:54:12 +0000

How to Tell Whether You’re Being Hugged or Stabbed:

In this crazy world, who can you trust? Thanks, Lifehacker.

How to make a dessert that can't possibly fail to impress.

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 18:04:05 +0000

How to make a dessert that can't possibly fail to impress.:

First person to make me this gets my firstborn child named after them. S’really f’really.

How Run An Awesome Roleplay Session

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 12:00:05 +0000

“Cthulhu farts. Minus 95 Insanity.” (Based on a true story.)

GMs, DMs, storyguides, Lords and Masters of Other Characters’ Doom, whatever you want to call yourselves: this one’s for you. Some of us are born naturals at providing the backdrop against which roleplayers run riot - my partner is one of these, for sure - but some of us take a little while to get into the swing of things. Here’s a few points I’ve learned from running some of my own RP sessions, and a few more pointers from thems what knows this stuff.

You will need:

pen and paper
dice, dice, dice, or the Dice Bag app for Android, if you’re techy like me
a good working knowledge of the RP system you’re using
an idea of your players’ likes and interests

Method:

Learn to think on your feet. This is by all means the most important skill a GM can learn. Your players will keep you on your toes, and it’s your job to keep them on theirs. Learn to trust your instincts - if it’s a good idea, use it there and then. The way I see it, there are no mistakes in GMing. Throw it out there, no matter how random or off-plot it might seem. Don’t slack on the surprises, because that’s what your players will be expecting… as it were.
Be confident. Don’t hesitate. Keep the flow going. Even if you’re making it up on the spot, it’s best not to start speaking until you know what it is you’re about to say. Take a moment to form a concrete idea in your head, then tell your players. As soon as you say it, it will exist - things are that black-and-white for your players, so don’t create grey areas for them.
Stock up on stocks. This means stock characters, stock backdrops, and stock plotlines. Having a big database of these will make creating your scenario easier, and will be a great source of material in case your players take the episode in a completely different direction to the one you’d planned. This can and does happen, more often than you might expect. Borrow from anything and everything - film, TV, literature, or even real life. You never know when you’ll need them.
Throw in pop culture references wherever you can. Specifically, if you can tie in something you know your players love, or can at least relate to, it will draw them in and make the experience that much more enjoyable for them - which is why you’re there, after all. For example, I’ve had players find a strange screwdriver-sized object with a blue light and a buzzing sound. And one of my favourite stock characters is Oscar the Ghoul, who’s basically Oscar the Grouch but with Cheech Marin’s voice.
Prepare some cutscenes, and let the rest flow around them. Again with the Doctor Who references, I know, but think of your cutscenes as the fixed points in the timeline of your scenario. These are the points in the story that absolutely must occur, in order to keep it going. You can let your players run amok between these cutscenes, so you won’t be micro-managing their experience and they get some control over what happens to them.
Play by your own rules. If you don’t like a particular aspect of the RPG system you’re using, throw it out and make up your own. Don’t get bogged down by niggly little rules that take forever to sort out - make judgement calls. An example: my partner and I love CthulhuTech, but we hate the combat and wounds systems in Framewerk. In our CT games, we just assign the enemy an appropriate HP score to that of our players, and take turns bashing each other until someone gives out. Makes for better flow, and doesn’t over-complicate things for inexperienced RPers.
Ensure your players’ characters have depth. This may take a few sessions to develop, but having some really complex and deep personalities and backstories to bounce your scenario off makes for much more exciting roleplay. If you’ve got a PC with acute arachnophobia, you’ve got a plot idea involving some really creepy-looking spiders ready-made for you. Just ‘cause, you know, giving your players the jibblies is always fun. However, if you’ve got a player whose character is deliberately two-dimensional, there’s only one thing that will definitely open them up - bribery. Offer them items, XP, HP, whatever.
Bust overbearing players down. This is your universe they’re playing in, and you get to make the rules, no matter how unlikely or surreal. If they’re ruining the game for the other players, kill ‘em off! Or at the very least, have some random NPC pop up and steal their coolest gadget from them. Without wanting to inflate your ego too much, you are God in your universe. Smite the unworthy, and the meek will surely worship you. Or something like that.
If you’re running a full campaign, organise a regular gaming slot. Something like every other day, or Tuesdays at 2pm, or under the light of the full moon, or at least whenever the stars are right (mwahaha). It keeps interest and commitment up from your players, and allows you to “get in the zone” that much more easily.
Make notes on what works for you. This will vary between players and scenarios, but patterns will emerge. Above all, know what works for you. The power to create an awesome session rests entirely with you, no matter the calibre of your players. If you can make each session more awesome than the last, your players will adore you and the fun will never end. Well, until Cthulhu farts on the party.

A word to the wise…

In the most recently screen episode of Skins, a new character called Alex uses a six-sided dice and a card with corresponding options on it to “keep things random”. Each time he rolls the dice, he must do what his card tells him. The sixth option is always to run away; otherwise, his card can say anything he chooses. But he must obey, no matter the situation. I thought this would be a feckin’ great idea for a GM to utilise. What do you think?

Further reading:

Behind Every Good DM, Part 1 and Part 2 (Wizards of the Coast)
How To Be A Good GM (Fantasy Library)
GM Guide
Storytelling tips for (beginning) GMs (Dark Reign)

How to Twitter.

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 06:00:05 +0000

How to Twitter.

How to greet a dog. Apologies to all my dog-loving followers,...

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 18:03:05 +0000

How to greet a dog.

Apologies to all my dog-loving followers, but this is why I’m a cat person.

How to increase the performance of your Canon kit lens.

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:02:05 +0000

How to increase the performance of your Canon kit lens.

How to tape up your hands before a fight. Although I do wish...

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:02:05 +0000

How to tape up your hands before a fight.

Although I do wish you wouldn’t fight.

How to write a sixties protest song.

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:00:06 +0000

How to write a sixties protest song.

How to Reboot Your Sleep Cycle and Get the Rest You Deserve

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 06:00:05 +0000

How to Reboot Your Sleep Cycle and Get the Rest You Deserve:

Lifehacker has a lot of articles on getting good sleep, and this is probably the best one to read if you’re having real problems.

For what it’s worth, I’m working on five hours’ sleep today, and I feel great.

Hipster how-to.

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:02:06 +0000

Hipster how-to.

How to wear a scarf, in 25 different flavours. Congratulations...

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:00:06 +0000

How to wear a scarf, in 25 different flavours.

Congratulations to wendyslookbook for having the most reblogged how-to video on Tumblr right now.

How to draw a dragon.

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 06:00:05 +0000

How to draw a dragon.:

Guys, this is probably the most important how-to (that wasn’t made by me) that I can ever share with you. Your very cromulence depends upon the skills of an artist you display in your dragon drawings.

Remember now, it’s different Ss but consummate Vs.

How to work better.

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:02:06 +0000

How to work better.