Picnik and Picnics

    Hello everyone, as you may know, I am back at school, and as such I have other things to do, like readings and presentations and quizzes and various other tests of knowledge and skill, that are apparently more important to finish than writing new blog posts. You may also have noticed that it has been a disturbingly long time since I wrote an actual structured post. For the most part this was because of moving to a new apartment (I still live in a basement, but now I get to walk upstairs to get my breakfast and watch reruns of How I Met Your Mother) and starting school and being lazy and procrastinating on my school work by watching YouTube rather than writing my blog. Yes I know, that's a very unproductive use of my time, but how can you resist

this,

this,

and this?

It's actually pretty easy because all of those videos are pretty boring to watch (except the last one), but that doesn't mean there aren't any good YouTube channels that are worth wasting all your time on. For example barelypolitical, vsauce and ViralVideoFilmSchool (because it's not RWJ) are all awesome, and as such are not a waste of time. So go check them out. Remember, becoming awesome is not a spectator sport, so get out there and start being awesome.

Picnik

Level of Awesomeness: So awesome it will almost make you not suck at photography.

What Is It: Picnik is a free photo editing program on the Internet. Check it out here. You can use it to make your friends think you are artistic. For example, you could turn this boring picture of goats licking a bus,

into something beautiful and artistic like this,

Go ahead. Make pretty pictures. And then put them as your profile picture on Facebook. Everyone loves overedited photos of you and your friends with lyrics and hearts on them because they're so gosh-darn cute. Tired of making yourself look fabulous? Ready for a challenge? You can put your skills to the test with Picnik too. I got this activity from the Internet at some point in the past. Basically you want to try to make an awesome looking album cover using a randomly generated title, artist and image.

Step 1: Find your artist name. Search for a "Random article" on Wikipedia and take the name of that article as your artist's name for your album cover.

Example:

Step 2: Find your album title. Go to Wikiquote and search for a "Random page" take the last few words of the page (whatever makes the most sense as an album title).

Example:

Step 3: Go to Flickr. Explore "Last 7 Days Interesting" and use the third picture. Or if you're like me and you don't want to risk getting sued over copyright infringement use a creative commons image that allows derivative works*.

Example:

Open up Picnik (or any other editing program, but this is about Picnik... so yeah), and make your album cover. Eventually, you'll end up with something like this,

Monkey Shines, The Citizen, Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aurimasr/

Maybe yours will look even better because I suck at art due to the fact that I stopped doing anything remotely artistic after elementary school. So that's the challenge, good luck.

Why Is It Awesome: Because who doesn't love the sense of accomplishment you get when you finish a project and it actually looks good? Picnik lets you make your photos look cool without the hassle of knowing what you're doing and without the need to sell your first child in order to be able to afford Photoshop or some such.

*Much less fun, but much more legal.

Picnics

Level of Awesomeness: Scrumptious (as long as the ants and bears don't steal your sandwiches or picinic basket)

What Is It: You like eating, right? And you like going outside sometimes? Now you can combine your love of food with your love of sometimes leaving your house into one magical experience called a picnic. A picnic is essentially when you take your food outside to eat. In a more traditional sense a picnic is when you pack your food into a picnic basket (it's called that because it's used for picnics), and go to a park or somewhere moderately free of bears to consume said food. If you can afford a blanket to lay on the ground you should invest in one; this will prevent your trousers from becoming too heavily soiled. Ideally, your blanket will have a red and white plaid pattern of some sort because that's what I like to think of when I envision picnics.

Note: Bring enough food, you don't want to have to forage for food because you probably know nothing about foraging and the consequences could be tragic.

Can you eat this? I have no idea. It might be tasty, or it might burn your insides with poison.

Is it safe to drink a half-empty bottle of vodka you found in a public garden? Who knows?

Is this a real carrot or a statue? Without Bear Grylls you'll never know.

So to be on the safe side, it's probably best to avoid foraging altogether and just bring enough food in the first place.

Why Is It Awesome: Some say it's "because you can dress up in old English costumes and sit on a blanket outside, and people will think it's adorable and not weird", but it's so much more than that. Picnics are awesome on so many levels. The rich love picnics because it gives them a public venue to flaunt their success by eating gold-leafed lobsters wrapped in filet mignon stuffed with caviar with a side of truffles and $10, 000 bottles of champagne. On the other hand picnics are awesome for the poor because a blanket is way cheaper than a table. Why splurge on an expensive kitchen table and chairs when there's plenty of ground outside to sit on? Everyone benefits from the magic of the picnic (except picnicphobic people), and that's why picnics are so awesome. Also that thing about wearing old-timey costumes.