I just wanted to make the announcement on here that I received an email from Will Shortz, and he liked one of my puzzles well enough to publish in the New York Times. I’m really excited, and I can’t wait to see it in print!

The puzzle will run on a Wednesday, and Mr. Shortz said he has a cache built up of about 9 months’ worth of Wednesdays, so it will probably be a while before it shows up, but I’ll be sure to post an update when I get an exact date.

Also, SMPTV is going great. What a crazy whirlwind of a program. Unfortunately I don’t get much free time to write about my experiences, but I’ve been trying to post samples on facebook and on SoundCloud, so if you’re interested in what I’ve been up to musically, head over to my SoundCloud page or my SMPTV page and check out some of the tracks.

http://missingno.ocremix.org/

Well the people have spoken: My Greatest Rival is not only the worst song on the album, but may very well be the worst game remix of all time! Just look at some of these testimonials:

“I know OCR albums tend to be a bit hit & miss, but My Greatest Rival is one of the most goddawful ‘songs’ I’ve ever heard.” — NeelEvil

“Also, if you’re going to download the .zip, delete My Greatest Rival. Shit’s garbage.” – Anonymous @ 4chan

“My Greatest Rival is atrocious if only for the fuckawful vocals” – 4chan

“Essa My greatest Rival começou épica pra caralho, aí veio um truta cantando e fodeu a porra toda.” – guiiivs

[Translation: "My Greatest Rival started out epic as hell, and then a singing trout came in and f***d everything up.]

“Fourth track has both over-long intro with no relevance or tonal/melodic coherence with the rest of the track and vocals from people who aren’t good at singing! That’s double for your money! (lyrics are also terribles)” – Suairyu

[Jaroban: And why would he listen to the intro carefully if it makes him want to hurl?]

“Disc 1, Track 4, immediately deleted. Probably the worst OCR song I’ve ever heard. But I’m sure it’ll probably be the most popular with the tweeny-group just for saying ‘bigger pokeballs’ repeatedly. It’s bland, the rythm feels way off, most of the lyrics are incredibly bland and predictable…it’s just a chore to listen to, and worse, it’s a good song in Soul Silver, so it’s very disappointing to hear it being completely ripped apart so early in the album. I get the feeling they really built the song entirely on trying to get a giggle out of saying ‘bigger pokeballs’ and forgot to actually make the song something you can listen to.” – MAGNUS-8M

 
So is My Greatest Rival the most godawful piece of crap that ever crapped? Or is it a brilliant piece of sociopolitical satire? Weigh in below with your opinion!

 Click here for the original blog post about “My Greatest Rival”

EDIT:
I feel like I should provide some context for those that aren’t familiar with the source material.

My Greatest Rival is a remix of this song (Rival Battle) from Pokémon Gold/Silver/Crystal:

And it’s supposed to sound kind of like:

Yes I did send off a couple of puzzles to Will Shortz before. It was one of those situations where I knew what the criticisms would be before I ever sent them off. I learned an important lesson: if you’re not confident in your work, don’t bother sending it in.

That said, I think I have a couple of solid efforts this time, so we’ll see if he decides to pick either one of them up.

To celebrate the occasion, I’m posting one of my rejected efforts from before. Maybe someone will get some enjoyment out of solving it, even though it wasn’t up to the NYT’s lofty standards.

BTW, if you’re an aspiring constructor, the criticisms were: 1. Too many 3-letter words, 2. Some ugly partials.

This puzzle requires Java to run.

The track is meant to be a sort of tribute both to the Pokémon games and to the anime, which I used to watch with some of my buddies back in high school.

People are talking! Click here for the public reaction to “My Greatest Rival”

Project Website • Project @ OCRemix

Click here for the lyrics!

I want to thank all the following people for their help on the track:

Matty – Lead vocals, rhythm guitars
Fishy – Lead guitars, rhythm guitars
Sam Cooper – Vocals
Vralia – Vocals
Jocelyn Holst – Vocals
DJ Krisp-E – Vocals
chris stibrany – Additional programming, mastering

Obviously, I’m very excited about this album and I hope people enjoy listening as much as I’ve enjoyed working on it.

In other news, I’ve been working hard at increasing my web presence, and I’ve launched a few more places on the web where you can follow me and get updates on what I’m working on. I’ve got a new facebook Page, and a new Twitter account, and am working on turning the Music page into a résumé/portfolio. So if anyone should want to receive the latest poop on me, you can subscribe using the “Follow Me” tab on the side of the site.

“Softball?” you might ask. “In February? In Colorado?” Yep, yep, and uh-uh. And you know what? It was actually a pretty nice night out. Looks like all those years of spraying aerosol cans up into the atmosphere is finally starting to pay off.

No word from school yet. As I mentioned before, I don’t really expect to hear anything until April. I just checked the site, and it says my app isn’t even through the first stage of evaluation yet, so it would seem I’ve still got a while to wait.

I’ve been trying to keep the momentum going since getting my application in. It hasn’t really been easy, but I’ve tried. I actually have gotten a few projects finished.

1. My track for Pokémon: The Missingno Tracks, a ReMix album which is due out tomorrow. Pretty excited about that.
2. Finished a second round of crosswords to submit for publication. Will hopefully mail these out tomorrow.
3. Conquered Matt Gaffney’s “LITERARY FEBRUARY.”Fun times.
4. Was defensive coordinator for a team that took down the championship in Goal Line Blitz. LOL. Finally.

So I guess that stuff is not completely productive towards anything important. But it has been fun. There’s a few other things I’ve been working on, too, but they clearly aren’t interesting enough to be thought of by my brain right now.

I wanted to give a quick shout to Ben Hale, whose debut novel The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore just hit stores this last month, to widespread critical acclaim. Ben Hale and I are acquaintances from high school, and he’s the kind of dude you can sit and listen to for hours on end, because he’s a great story teller. I have my copy, but I haven’t read it yet, because…

OH YEAH. That’s another thing I accomplished. I finished reading the Old Testament. I found it pretty weird. So I’ll probably be reading the New Testament before I get to Ben’s book.

Anyhoo, I’ll be talking more about many of these things as release dates and letters come. Until then!

I turned in my UMN app, which is due on the first.  I finished the online apps for Milwaukee and Austin.  I need to do my mailing for those two universities, finish my online app with Temple, finish my personal statement for Temple, and then I’ll be done with December.

Which only means it’s on to the January deadlines, which are quickly approaching.  One foot in front of the other.  February 15th, here I come…

1. GRE (isn’t gonna happen at this point)
2. Receive recommendation letters (already have commitments for this – YAY!)
3. Statement of Objectives (Proofread)
4. Résumé (Proofread)

Today we’re gonna focus on choosing the portfolio. I’m gonna give you guys some input since I have several options.

Here are your candidates:

• Bones’ Theme — Theme from the film Zombie Blood Chaos. Performed by the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra, cond. David Hernando.
• Iridescent Plumage (Excerpt) — Performed by the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra, cond. David Hernando.
• Prelude for Orchestra (Excerpt) — Performed by the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra, cond. David Hernando.
• First Sacrifice — Performed by the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra, cond. David Hernando.
• Traveling Theme — From the unreleased game Quest to End All Quests. Performed by the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra, cond. David Hernando.
• Fabula Venera — From the show Lords of Pain E01. Sequenced. This is the only one that was actually scored to picture.

I can use 3, so you can vote for your favorite 3 below. Bear in mind that they should demonstrate potential in ability to compose for film.

I can’t believe it’s here…or less than two weeks away, at least.
Well, I’ve got one deadline on the first and then three on the 15th.  One of those online applications is finished.  The other three are just waiting for a final draft of my personal statement.  The application for the first is all online, recommendation letters are done and transcripts are sent.  So I’m doing okay for time.

Torturing myself over my personal statement.  I have to decide on a second story to include in my creative writing sample.  Over-vacillating on that too.  I’m feeling okay tho, but like I have a lot to get done this weekend.

First deadline is coming up quick, Dec. 1st.  Having some issues with my recommendation letters – one of them is in Italy which means everything is going to take ass-long to arrive, and the other gave me his letter to review and it was awful.  When I brought up a couple of issues I had (like, you do not need to tell the admissions committee that my work is not “of your taste”.  could you instead mention ANYTHING AT ALL about how I am as a student) he informed me that he was not in the habit of taking instruction from students….THEN WHY DID YOU GIVE ME THE LETTER TO READ?!? Whatever, I found someone else to write my third letter so it’s okay, but it was a headache.

I’m having a problem with my personal statement, namely describing “where I fit in the field of contemporary fiction”.  UGH.

My “flag ship” writing sample is pretty much ready to go, but I need to supplement it with a shorter piece and I have yet to do that.

I’m scared as hell, feel way behind, etc etc etc.

That is all. Back to work now.