Category: Uncategorized

Favre

Bret Favre recently retired from the NFL after 17 seasons as a quarterback. He holds pretty much every significant passing record. But the endless highlights and newspaper articles fail to accurately capture his greatness. Leave it to 16 years of video game appearances to fully show how great Favre was. Check out this post for screen caps and commentary on various games throughout Favre career. While it says it is a 16 page article, the article is only a few paragraphs per page—the rest is a screen cap and user comments. I recommend skipping around. While the focus of this piece is to show Favre through the ages, it also shows quite a bit about football video games. I really enjoyed this and any Madden fans need to take a look.

http://sports.ign.com/articles/858/858013p1.html

the sims

As we get into the video gaming portion of the course, I decided to finally start playing the Sims 2 game for Playstation 2 that I bought a few months ago. It is one of those games that once you start you can’t really stop because it takes a lot of time and patience to create the perfect environment. It’s really unsatisfying to pause the game when your Sim has needs for: social, bladder, hygiene, hunger, fun, energy, comfort, and room. There is never a point where the Sim doesn’t need something. And there is always room for growth in the game, whether your Sim needs a new job, a romance, another house. It’s interesting how today’s culture is intrigued by simulation games and living through the lives of animated characters.

I’d be interested in hearing people’s experiences on Second Life and what that is like in comparison to the Sims…?

Madness? This is DAYLIGHT SAVINGS!!

So just an interesting experience I had yesterday concerning the whole “spring forward” deal. See, I didn’t realize that daylight savings started yesterday. I’m horrible with remembering these kinds of things. And yet, when I had to meet my friends at 3, I made it on time. How could this be? It’s simple!

I don’t use any kind of time-telling device that isn’t automatically monitored to adjust for daylight savings!

i.e. Technology stole an hour away from my life.

The only clock I have that I needed to adjust manually was my wristwatch, which I didn’t notice was wrong until now because I have a hard time using it (it’s analog; I can’t read it well). I use my cellphone or computer for everything else. I had a radio alarm clock, but I got rid of it once I discovered how much easier and efficient it is to just use my cell.

I’ve never had this happen to me before, so I thought it might be kind of interesting to share it with you all.

🙂

A victory for fair use… and over Michael Savage

I thought this story is very relevant to the movie we watched in class the other day. A judge in San Francisco ruled that a Muslim Civil Rights group had the right to rebroadcast and criticize four minutes of Michael Savage’s radio show because doing so was social commentary and fell under the terms of fair use.

Also, going back to the podcast David and I did, it’s interesting to wonder whether the publicity Michael Savage gets for his bigoted statements is a good thing or a bad thing. Either way it’s good that Savage’s frivolous law suit got thrown out.

Political Remix Videos

I know that everyone is probably getting sick of all the remix videos that are being posted. But I found this one that is actually a campagin ad for Hilary Clinton made from a mash up of Jack Nicholson clips. I think it is interesting how remix videos have now become a tool for political campaigns. [youtube U9NUPLaoUdo]

Another movie remix

[youtube TF3z-j8o39I]
Now this one is a bit different than the shining or office space remix trailer because it doesn’t try to “remix” the film’s genre, storyline, etc. but rather takes one aspect of fargo (i.e. how it portrays south dakotans) and analyzes it. Interesting to think about how remix videos can function differently.

Big Blue Dress

So my boyfriend is a 1337 pwnzor Tauran druid ftw, btw, and sends me these crazy things. The previous video reminded me of this one, which is one of the better ones I’ve seen.　It’s also musical, to a very catchy song. One more way MMORPGs invade the lives of non-players like me.

And remember; “A man who’s truly skilled can look quite good in twill!” Oh dear, that was a bit much, even for me…

[youtube vqO7zEWu0W0]

On the subject of robots…

Alright, so my titles need work. But this is a webcomic that I read, which I’m pretty sure no one else does. Thus I shall enlighten you as you have enlightened me. Most of them are single panels or short multipanel comics, with continuity stemming from the Transformers franchise. It’s a commentary on the whole picture, from Generation 1 to the fandom to mistakes Michael Bay hasn’t even made yet. The latest edition is of the latter category, and it updates every Monday.

Matt Moylan’s Lilformers

Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series

Yeah. I posted it. I capitalized and punctuated correctly. I have two decks stashed away in my desk somewhere if anyone else on the planet still knows how to play.

Moving on.

This is definitely more of a traditional remix than Haloid. It’s a series of episodes- each cut down to about ten minutes and completely dubbed over by one very talented man- and it’s absolutely hilarious. Whether you love, hate, or have never heard of children’s card games, this will probably make you laugh. Littlekuriboh got millions of hits per episode before having his videos taken down and being repeatedly banned from YouTube. I believe his episodes fall under fair use- but you can judge for yourselves. Now he has his own website.

Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series

And if you liked the funny subtitles of the Beni Lava video, he does something similar for the opening and ending themes of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Other Abridged Movie right here! Sadly, it will probably be ripped off of YouTube once ‘they’ find it.

[youtube pBhUWjQAJYE]

Haloid

This is possibly the best example of borrowed media I have ever witnessed. It was choreographed and animated by one guy. If the characters were not borrowed, it would be original media, and impressive original media at that. The lengths fans go to appreciate their favorite games for free is astounding, though I’m sure this produced a different kind of return. It is, of course, available for download in ridiculous quality. Fanservice alert: If you are deeply attached to the manly mystique of Master Chief, you may want to keep a defibrillator handy.

[youtube K9sYixr2miY]

Obama mashup video

This is basically just a mashup of various images from the Obama campaign in Texas, and I think it raises issues of how mashups can be used as tools of political persuasion/propaganda. However, what really intrigued me was the song used in the video, which if I’m not mistaken samples from the trumpet line to the 1966 song “Hold on, I’m comin'” by the R&B group Sam and Dave (and written by Issac Hayes). Appropriate for the image the Obama campaign is trying to project, I’d say. Enjoy.

[youtube pXvq1wu-LiI]

Amazing Video

So I got this from AOL news (yeah, I know, but give me a break) and I just wanted to share it with you all.

There’s a video and an article, so I’m just going to post the link here.

It’s a video of a plane in Germany trying to land in extremely heavy winds. I was never really afraid of planes before, but now I sort of wonder…

Toothpaste for breakfast, lunch and dinner

Toothpaste For Dinner
toothpastefordinner.com

Oh toothpaste for dinner. You are omnipresent. From staring at me from bright orange of “The Wonnacott Word” in the toliet stall to printed across the chest of the awkward girl who rings me up at the Co-op, your snarky sense of humor has become mass-marketable.
Toothpaste for dinner has actually proven so successful an enterprise that his wife also has her own oddball site Natalie Dee and they have a joint effort Married to the Sea

And while the comics can be politically clever, offer scathing social commentary, or seve as icons of pop culture, for the most part their just strange. And, in my opinion, most these people never would have gotten published if wasn’t for the internet. On the other hand, a lot of this comics are way wittier, and in some sense more “artistic” than the Garfield I read in the Sunday funnies. Due to the democratic nature of the internet, should webcomics not be held to the same standards as print? I don’t know–it’s hard to say. It’s a double-edge sword, I suppose. More individuals are exposed to web-comics thanks to the viral nature, but in their mass-reproducibility, they seem to lose some of their credentials.

Follow up on class: The limitations of the content of comics because of technology

I just wanted to follow up on the point I was trying to make in class yesterday: I still think there are limitations on the content of comics that come as a result of technology, not institutions or culture. More specifically, I think that comics cannot express certain abstract ideas that regular prose can express. Or at the very least, it would be cumbersome for comics to do so.

I think of the political science reading I am doing now on what causes transitions to democracy. It may be possible to discuss this with a narrator in comics (sort of in the way that McCloud does in his piece) but the concepts surrounding transitions to democracy are fundamentally abstract. Comics are rooted in pictorial representation, not text. As McCould defines it, comics are “the juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence intended to convey information and/or produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.” (page 9)

So if you wanted to make a comic about the theory of transition to democracy you could maybe do it, but it would be very texty and would move away from McCloud’s definition of comics.

This all being said, I don’t want to sound like I’m hating on comics. McCould’s piece is a brilliant example of how comics can make arguments and convey ideas in a way that transcends text. But once again, McCould is analyzing comics: a visual medium.

Thoughts?

Final Cut Glory

So yesterday, I was editing in Final Cut for a project I’ve been working on which requires a lot of various special effects, photoshop, etc.

It never ceases to astound me just how versatile this program is. I remember when I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how to use the darn program. One day, a friend of mine challenged me to a film competition. We each had 24 hours to shoot and edit a two minute special effects short paying homage to Japanese shows like Power Rangers etc. Fortunately, I could only do so much in Imovie, and I was forced to leap to Final Cut in order to make the edits and visuals I wanted. After about 24 hours straight of slaving over this project, I got it done. Afterwards, it dawned upon me just how much I was able to do with this one program. To think that not too long ago, we were all editing on vhs players stacked on one another.

When I was a kid, and I used to make my short movies, I’d always have to put the machines on top of each other and time things perfectly, otherwise I’d accidentally erase too much and have to start over. Now, with all the digital programs and hardware available, it’s only getting more user friendly. It’s astounding whenever I think about it.

-E.

Coworking

So I was browsing Google News one day when I stumbled upon this article about something called “coworking” (note the lack of a hyphen).

Evidently in big cities like New York, entrepreneurs have been collaborating to rent office space to use together. Sounds normal, right? Here’s the thing: none of them are actually working together. They’re all starting their own businesses and working on their own projects independently while sharing the workspace.

They do this for various reasons. For one thing, it’s cheap. Instead of buying a workspace for yourself when you’re trying to start a company, you can just rent a small part of this communal work area. Secondly, the people working in this shared space give each other motivation, support, and allow for the exchange of free ideas. Sound familiar? It’s just like the internet, but in real life! People can get together to get things done, but not necessarily the same thing. It’s like the internet but even better because instead of coldly communicating through typed words, they can actually speak to each other in person.

I thought this was a really great article, and I really wanted to share it with the class. If you have time, please read it!