ZAK Knits Sep. 30th, 2016: On the Beginner's Road.

ZAK Knits: On the Knitter's Beginning Road      

      Hey, how's everyone day going?

      So I've recently decided to start knitting! I've been interested in it for the longest time but I never really gave myself the push to learn until now. My experienced mum (who runs her own blog called Dido's World, you can find her own knitting work there.) has been helping me a lot so I'm definitely on the right track. I decided to make a baby blanket my first project. My little brother has been dying for a new blanket so I thought I'd put some love into a new blanket just for him.

      It's a simple straight stitch blanket using US 10 - 6.0 mm circular needles I'm doing as far as colors six rows of white, then four rows of green, then six rows of yellow and then back to green again.

      I've had a few scary hair-pulling moments with this such as dropping a bunch of stitches, which I'm getting better at NOT doing and even accidentally knitting backwards to the point my mum had to help and teach me how to unpick two rows. So yeah I've definitely made some beginners mistakes but I kept trucking along and I think I'm improving a lot.

      Knitting has been pretty relaxing and a great pass time so I'm definitely going to keep it up. I have a lot of things I need to learn still such as the full terminology, how to purl, ect. I would love to actually make my own knitting patterns and put them out there for people to knit themselves so that's something I really want to work towards.
      One last thing before I sign off, I have a Ravelry account now, it's a place where people who knit and crochet can go to show off their works, talk with others, and sell their own knitting patterns and items. There are also a lot of free patterns too so it's a great place to go and check out if you're an avid knitter. My Ravelry user name is ZAKMan you can find my blanket WIP with more information on what yarn I'm using there. With that all said I'm going to pick up some needles and continue knitting, I'll keep you all updated on my projects so stay tuned.

See you in the next blog!

20 Years of 64 bit Power

Nintendo 64 Celebrates it's 20th Birthday

      I can remember about 18 years ago when I received my first Nintendo 64 and a copy of Super Mario 64. It was my very first video game console and introduced me to a brand new world beyond my imagination.

      Playing these 3D games on the big TV, running around as Mario collecting stars and coins, it really blew my mind. My first Nintendo 64 was actually a tradition black machine with a white controller but that actually broke mysteriously, I really have no idea what happened but my mum and dad went and replaced it with a beautiful transparent red Nintendo 64, which is actually the same machine pictured above. Yup I've kept this baby all my life and it still runs too, okay so it sometimes runs, I have to fiddle around with it and it can be a bit cranky but it runs nonetheless.

      So running through a brief history of the machine, the Nintendo 64 started production when Nintendo and a California based computer hardware and software manufacturer Silicon Graphics (SGI) joined forces to begin Project Realty. Project Realty was going to bring players out of the current 16bit era, which had already experimented with 3D games such as Star Fox (SNES 1993), and into a brand new 64 bit 3D era. Nintendo announced that the console would use standard cartridges with a memory size of 100 Mbits instead of CDs, which the Playstation was already using at the time, a decision some say was a downfall for Nintendo though I disagree. The project was renamed to the Nintendo Ultra 64 (NUS for short) and then to what we know as the Nintendo 64 and launched in Japan on June 23rd, 1996 and officially in America on September 19th, 1996. Nintendo only launched 2 games alongside the 64 in America, those games being Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64. Though despite only two games releasing on launch the Nintendo 64 sold over $300,000 on its first three days.

      Many awesome games would soon release, games that will be etched in mine, and many other's memories forever. I own quite a few games for the Nintendo 64, such included are Super Mario 64, Pokemon Stadium 1&2, Yoshi's Story, Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart 64, and quite a few others. I didn't get to own every great game to come out on the console and some I had to experience on the Virtual Console but I loved every memory I made on this machine. Super Mario 64 was my first Nintendo 64 and probably consumed most of my video game time as a kid (the other amount of time being consumed by Pokemon on my Gameboy.). Running around as Mario in a 3D world, exploring Peach's castle and collecting the starts in all the different paintings was a blast and I will always cherish that game.

      I know a lot of people had some mixed towards the controller and the odd change from the previous SNES controller but the controller always felt natural in my hands, maybe because it was my first console growing up, I didn't have any previous console controller experience.

      Anyway as this blog is getting a bit long now I'm going to end it off here and talk more about the games I own for it, and the experiences I had in future blogs. The Nintendo 64 will always be a great console in my mind and the games for it haven't aged a bit for me, I'm always able to pick up a controller and run through Mario 64 again and again. Nintendo 64 might be 20 years old today but its legacy will live on in the hearts of many gamers, former and present.

See you in the next blog!

Natchitoches; the City by the Cane

      We recently took a trip down to Natchitoches, Louisiana (est. 1714 and actually the oldest settlement of the Louisiana Purchase) and I recorded and put together this travel montage of the city and surrounding areas for everyone to enjoy. 




      There's quite a lot to check out here such as the Cane River Lake, the Natchitoches meat pies, and the historic shopping district. Apparently Louisiana's oldest General Store is here as well, it's called the Kaffie-Frederick General Mercantile Store. There's also the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, which documents the history of Louisiana sports, and the Northwest Louisiana History Museum (located in the same building) which has exhibits related to the history of Northwest Louisiana and the native-americans who lived here. 
   
      There's always some sort of event happening here so it's a great place to visit, especially during christmas time when Natchitoches holds its annual Christmas Festival of Lights from November 21st to January 6th where they light up the town and lake with tons of awesome christmas lights.
      
      Anyway I had a blast checking out Natchitoches and I hope the travel montage and this blog post gives you a great idea of what's in store if you go there. There's a couple of websites you can check out if you want more information on the history of the city or current events happening, they are the Natchitoches Convention and Visitors Bureau and The official Natchitoches website.
   
      One last cool thing about Natchitoches is that Cane River Lake is home to some pretty awesome Chinese Geese which I'll be posting a separate video for that soon, they're pretty cool dudes and dudettes so you'll definitely enjoy that.

      Okay so hope you enjoyed the video because it took me forever to get it up, it was supposed to go up hours ago but due to some massive rendering errors I wasn't able to get it up until now. I might post the story about that crazy little hijink in the next blog post but until then..

See you on the next blog!

An Introduction to the Blog

Hello and welcome to the ZAK Entertainment blog!

            I decided to start up this blog to express my many interests in a way that will hopefully entertain you. I’ll be blogging about topics such as Film, Travel, Books, Knitting, and Video Games as those are my main interests. I know it seems like a bit of a stretch but I’m going to be organizing everything to where it’s possible to only view certain blogs of certain topics. I picked the name ZAK Entertainment because I knew it would be flexible enough so I could cater to quite a few of my interests and hobbies and also a lot of your interests too.

            I also will be, and already are, posting short films, travel montages, and other cool videos on our YouTube channel ZAK Entertainment; you can go to our Youtube channel by clicking the Youtube tab at the top.

            Another passion of mine I would love to introduce onto this blog is my short stories. I've been working on ideas for years now and I think this could be a good place to finally get those ideas out there. 

            So let’s get the ball rolling and kick this blog off with a bang. Hope everyone enjoys the topics I will be posting here. I'm going to be posting a blog at least once a week but there's a lot of topics that happened recently i'd like to blog about so there might be more then that. We also have a Facebook page you can like to so you don’t miss a single blog post or Youtube upload so go check that out. 

See you soon!