Final Project Thoughts, eh? Well, I thought this was pretty cool, we went through a billion different iterations of ideas and then finally ended up choosing to do a presentation as opposed to choosing to do a video, like we thought we were going to do. It was a pretty big pain to just figure out exactly what we wanted to do, initially we wanted to do a video chronicling teaching people how to play video games, then we found some hilarious youtube videos that we wanted to make into a video project. Unfortunately, as we continued to work on that whole thing, what we did was fail at that. So, the presentation evolved from when you explained to us that a group did a ‘board meeting’ type thing, and that it went over well. We kept trying to come up with various ways to present the material, we thought maybe we could voice over some videos and play those, but then we felt that it might be a little corny, add that to the fact that I’m pretty sure everyone else is already doing a video of some sort, we figured it might be cool to actually have a physical presence with some videos being played.
We initially joked around with Roberto when he was playing World of Warcraft, and started video taping him while he was playing, just making fun of him and what not, but that video ended up being totally worthwhile to the project, and even though I was making fun of him, it explained some social learning aspects that Gee had had, without us even really having read that far into Gee’s principals. Speaking of, Roberto was kind of embarrassed and wasn’t too thrilled that he and Wammith are going to be in the presentation, but don’t worry, I don’t make too much fun of him, I’m nice about it, and all that.
We also went through the thoughts of doing a Powerpoint Presentation, but it felt like it was going to be a little too lame, and very high school esque, so instead, we decided to just have one of us manning videos while the other person is talking and just generally being awesome. We decided to have two videos, as otherwise it was going to be a 20 minute project, and we just didn’t think that was going to be too thrilling for the class, especially when you stated that it was only supposed to be 6-7 minutes. Sorry, we are probably still going to be a bit over. We’ll see though, we’ll see.
I really enjoyed the class, it’s been fun, I learned a bit (I’m already fairly computer literate, as well as internet literate so most of this was really already second nature. Not to mention I am also in another class that incredibly overlaps this one, LIS/ENG 482) and I met a lot of people. Or did I? Thanks Jon, for the great fun, I’m actually contemplating going to grad school for LIS now.

James Paul Gee, in his book 'What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy' states that video games are a definite form of learning. He claims that not only are they useful in teaching 'old dogs new tricks (See Baby Boomers,)' but that they also have a social learning aspect to them. In the introduction to his book, he talks about how one father went home and tried to learn how to play a video game, on his own. His son walks in, sees the incredible frustration that his father is having with the game and says "What are you trying to do?" "Trying to learn how to play this damn video game." "Alone? That's stupid." Gee takes what we already know about video games and puts a new light on it, showing that they are a learning medium in their own right, whether it be via social values or through various other means. We want to show how video games have evolved (show a video of pong, and controller) from the simple, to the complex (show a video of WoW or a 360 game and all the buttons associated with either.) At the center of our project, we plan to use content from Youtube related to the design, play experience, and social context of video games in American culture. Using special technology meant to piece Youtube videos together, we will gather clips such as: videogame previews, gameplay demonstrations, game menu and setup demonstrations, and perhaps miscellaneous comments from gamers and non-gamers. We also will potentially take videos of people playing games and have the social interactions that we notice, and discuss them. We might include still images interspersed throughout our presentation in order to provide “anchors” for our discussion, but this is a hypothesis right now. The visual content that we collect will be arranged in a way that opens up themes of Gee’s, including “semiotic domains” and the methods of learning within semiotic domains. The sequence of images will be designed to combine some of the expository elements of a report with some of the narrative elements of a technological history. Our own voices might overlay certain sections in order to help guide our audience through some of the more advanced themes or ideas iterated by Gee.


-explain a few games that are "isolated"--that is, they definitely require learning skills, but they are not socially reinforced because they are unpopular or have a learning curve that is too steep to be rewarding (I have a particular game that might work, and I'm biased because I LOVE it, so it could be interesting...)

-explain how certain kinds of learning can carry over between games (for instance, someone skilled in FPS games has an easier time of learning Halo, Gears of War, Resistance, etc.)

-explain how knowledge is tested within the "semiotic domain" of gaming (for instance, how are we "tested" for our knowledge? Tournaments? Friendly competition between friends? Our ability to teach someone else how to play?)

Kongregate Do it. It's amazing. This is the first game I played on there. I found it last year when I was trying to do a project for my English 300 class with Spencer, on Graphic Novels. I managed to spend 6 hours playing one game instead of doing that project, and then posted about it on my blog for that class. But yeah. Many many interactive games there that make me waste way too much time. I've got an account and when I 'work' at the computer labs, instead of doing homework, I get hooked into the games on that site. I played "Hero's Arms" for 3 hours yesterday and didn't do any work other than that. Whoops. And then again on Saturday. Four straight hours.

What is your opinion on web designers currently being so highly salaried? Do you think that they are just glorified writers, or do you think their jobs actually demand the salary that they receive?

What is your opinion on 'viral' marketing? IE When a group goes out and brings the film into the real world so that way people are more exposed to it? There was a stunt a few years ago where the Aqua Teen Hunger Force video was marketed by lit-up things in cities across the nation. One such city thought they were bombs and brought in the bomb squad. Opinions?

When you go and see a play, how does that differ from a film that tries to engage all of your senses? IE an IMAX and a lot of loud speakers? Or how does it differ from a video game? Which do you see yourself discussing more after completing the adventure?

While writing in this area was somewhat different than on our other projects, it was still fairly straightforward. I tried to open up the video that we had in iMovie, but I just couldn’t get it to work properly, so I jumped back over to the PC and used Windows Movie Maker. That was much more straightforward and incredibly simple to do. But before I even went to that, I watched what we had, a few clips of street peddlers and the homeless of New Orleans, and came up with a script to go over what they were saying, to make the video more of a ‘trailer for a film’ esque feel. That writing was a little different than I was used to, as I was writing to something that was already created. It wasn’t something that I created based on nothing, I had to actually make sure that it worked with what we had, and what we had was filmed without any idea in mind. I think that’s probably the hardest thing about this, working with a video that was already made, and trying to make a guiding light through it, as opposed to coming up with the idea first and the filming from there. I hope that makes sense. I mean, with this approach, we didn’t actually direct, we had to work with what we had instead of figuring out what story we wanted to tell. Clearly we are kind of parodying these people, making it all a big joke, but some street peddlers actually make their living off of tourists. I don’t know too much about what they do and how they make their money or how much money they make, but I do know that some people are terrified of ‘street people’ and so I think that the way that I narrated ridiculous things, like “He holds a much darker secret” can be valid concerns that people have.
There wasn’t much revision of the writing, as like I said, we wrote it after the video was created. And on that note, there wasn’t any pre-writing either. However, it took me a little while to get into the groove and make as much humor as I could out of what was going on. I had to re-work the audio a little bit, at times, to make sure that my words weren’t cutting off anything that may or may not have been important (or hilarious) that the people were saying. There were times that, I’m sure you can tell, where I tried to somewhat vernacularize what I was saying to make it similar to what was about to come up with our ‘actors’.

Overall I think the process of making the video and doing the audio was very interesting, I never really have made a video from already created film and putting words to it was more difficult than I had assumed it was going to be. We tried to come up with locations where we could add music, but there just wasn’t anywhere worthy of putting music.

Answers

1.) The Author compares actually being at a concert and to watching it on something like MTV. In your opinion, what are some similarities and differeneces?

Differences are you get to keep your eardrums and you can set the audio to however you like it. However, you don't get the full 'experience' of being trampled to death, you can't actually see people on stage and you don't get to waste your money on the insanely overpriced shirts. Obviously I am more interested in watching it from the safety of my own home, where I have control over what happens, when its paused, etc. The price of beer (to an extent), food, etc.


2.) What does the author mean when he says, all mediation is remidiation?

I have no idea. Everyone reuses everything, I guess? Which isn't really surprising, it seems like everything is regurgitated anyway. But I don't really know what the author is trying to mean about this.

3.) The author talks about how photography can "come alive". What are some ways that this can happen?

Magic Eye. Definitely Magic Eye. But in all seriousness, I have no idea. I guess by making it shout at you via some stuff? Like I said, I'm not sure. I don't really know much about photography nor how to make a picture come alive, I've never seen such sorcery.

Hypermedia... What is your opinion on this phenomena, do you believe that it can be better as immersive as a real experience, or do you think that its just something that is far too hyped?

What is your opinion on differing mediums to get across different ideas? IE is it easier to get truthful information from an article or a video documentary? Which one do you believe more?

Mediation and remediation! What are your opinions on this?

Answers

1. Even when we have instances of multiple authors, a lot of times only one or two authors receive the attention and credit for the entire work. Why do you think this is?

I would have to assume it's because the authors that receive the attention are either more famous, or did more work. It's always about marketing and money.

2. I read a book over break called Letters to a Young Mathematician that talked a bit about who gets to be put on the list of authors for a given paper. Given that some papers involve lots of different specialists and maybe even hundreds of people contributing ideas, it can be very difficult to come up with a list just for practical purposes. Do you think we should list authors based on amount contributed, the importance of their ideas, or even based on who came up with the venture in the first place?

I would say they should be listed for everything you just stated, as all three of those things are important. I mean, I wouldn't want someone to be listed if the only thing they did was say "hey guys!" That just doesn't seem like any work at all.

3. While those citing a work may subconsciously only list the first author or so, they also do so for practical reasons. The goal of citations are to point those look for background and more information in the right direction, and a good way to do that is to describe the work from which the authors used. Might it be better to just list a title and other identifiable information rather than list only a few of the authors? It also might be more appropriate as information becomes much less bodiless in the sense that we don't think about the authors as much or care about them. (i.e. Wikipedia)

You are right --- we generally don't care about the authors unless they are noted in some way or another. I personally don't care who any of the authors are of the texts we've read recently, and in fact, I don't think I could even tell you who half of them are.


I like how most of the intertext is talking about the need to cooperate in order to get things done properly. I personally cannot stand working on projects with other people, and find it to be incredibly tiresome and boring to have to rely on someone else to get the work done. I would prefer to do it on my own, unless I absolutely trust them. Case in point, I recently got Resident Evil 5, a co-op game that can be played solo, but is easier with two players, and had both my roommate and my ex roommate play through about half of it with me. Now, while playing I didn't trust them to do anything and rightfully so, they pretty much failed miserably. I didn't really want to play with them, but since I thought they would be smarter than the AI (mistaken) that it would be easier to play with them. I went home for break, however, and played with my brother, who loves Resident Evil and is pretty damn good at it. I actually looked forward to that because I know I can trust him. Basically, what I'm saying is, unless you can explicitly trust someone you are working with, I would prefer not to work with them. That's why I dislike random pairings up (IE video project...) and all that jazz. I tend to do lesser work when I'm with someone that I am not interested in working with due to my lack of trust or lack of knowing them. I'd rather all the blame fall on me for failing than on someone I have no prior contact with.

How do you feel about "co-authors"? There are definitely some great novels with two authors, one that comes to mind is Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's "Good Omens" but how do you decide who gets their name first, and if both authors are even going to be on the cover?

What is it about the internet and publishing things that is so appealing? Is it the anonymonity or is it the fact that you don't get censored? Furthermore, how do you feel about people reading your work that you post and then potentially stealing it, as it is just another 'anonymous' internet posting?

Do you prefer to work alone, or do you think collaborative work, be it on a project or a paper, is better?

Observations?

I think I'm doing this right...

I was in vegas, I noticed that the more depressing of the casinos were the ones further north, as they were full of mostly locals, older people, and those that just looked incredibly unfortunate.

From the top of the Palms, most of the hotels look that same, just a bunch of lights and flashing.

The cards that they give out on the strip, for hookers? Yeah... That's gotta be the most depressing job I have ever seen, we tried to ask one of them a question about something else, and he didn't speak English, couldn't give us directions :(.

People that are playing slots are generally enthralled with the flashing lights and spinning numbers, I don't get it.

All the casinos are essentially the exact same, they just have different flashing lights and some different decor. But when you get down to it, all the tables and most of the stakes are similar, until you go to the high stakes rooms.

The clubs are full of attractive people -- why? Because I'm pretty sure people with money are more likely to be attractive as they have money to waste on things.

While booze in clubs in vegas is more expensive, it's generally worth it, the bartenders really know how to poor. Unlike Chicago, where you really do get one shot per drink.

Vegas is a prettier place during the day. Screw those flashy lights.

Stingrays are definitely different feeling than I expected, I totally thought they were going to be rough, but they were definitely slimy. Weird.

Why, in the springtime, did Vegas have to be just about warm enough to go to the pool for a little bit, but no longer?

Why did everyone go to Panama City Beach for spring break!? Isn't spring break a time to get away from all the people you know, not to go party with them in a different setting?

Flying while drunk at 7 in the morning is NOT fun.

Flying while drunk at 7 in the evening, however, is.

Hookers are more prominent in Vegas than I had actually thought, I know you see all those flyers, but I never expected to be accosted by one.

I'd rather drink than sleep while on vacation.

My friends would rather gamble on stupid things then hang out while on vacation.

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Chicago is a scary place when you have no idea where you are and need to take a train and taxi to get back to the place you are staying --- at 4 in the morning.

Women AND men are fickle.

Answers

1. Editing is everything. At least, that's what Hampe tells us when talking about documentaries. However, I wonder: do mediums exist that do no need any editing?

Everything needs editing, almost. Unless you are a fantastic orator, you will need editing. A novel needs editing, music needs editing, blah blah blah. Hell, I need editing for what I'm saying right here!

2. "The difference is that there is no feedback channel for the audience to test their impressions of the person." Basically, documentaries and many other types of media are one-way. In what different ways do we try to get around this obstacle?

Having write-in votes and competitions for the ends of tv shows, for who dies and who gets kicked off American Idol. Things of that nature. That, and video games, or choose your own adventure DVDs.

3. Hampe talked a lot about editing footage and showed in many ways how footage can be completely turned around depending on how one splices it together. How aware, do you think, are we of this sort of thing? Is our goal when taking in a new work of media to see what the author wanted or to question the "originality" of a work? Exactly how important is it for footage to be "real", and in what context?

I am fairly aware of this, but I highly doubt many others are actually aware about how much they are being manipulated. I think Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart do a good job of making fun of this by making sure that their faces are never seen during their interviews, and they could really be asking any question and just dubbing over what they originally asked. I think it is to see what the author wanted, at first, and then going into the originality, and it is definitely important for footage to be real, without real footage, how are we supposed to know what exactly is happening? Granted, most of the time our footage is edited so it doesn't ,matter.

Week 9

Do you believe that it is more poignant to not run an interview, but to have the questions pre-scripted so that way your information comes off in a better manner, or do you think that this takes away from the process?

On that note, do you think that when an interview is pre-scripted, we get less information than we would if the interview was unscripted and spontaneous?

Do you prefer to actually hear the interviewers questions and see the interviewer, or do you think it's better just to edit the interview together so that it seems like the interviewee is just telling a story?

Creepy Roommate Story

Creepy Roommate Story

Here's my audio file, a story about a creepy roommate that I had to live with this semester, or at least for the first month. I went through a few iterations of what I wanted to do, first I wanted to do a comedy style thing, then I wanted to read a play I wrote for another class, but eventually ended up settling on re-telling this story. This was about the 10th time I told the story, and as I was getting to the 4 minute mark, realized I had quite a bit left to tell, so I had to alter exactly what I was saying and fit the rest of the story into the remaining minute. Of course, then it became rushed and all that, but I had already cut out a giant portion of the story and I figured the last part wasn't nearly as important the rest of the story, though clearly it was the most climatic. I preserved most of my pauses and my "umms" as I felt like it added to the story. I mean, I am trying to be a story teller, as I am a rhetoric major, so I figured that if I am a writer, I need to be able to tell stories out loud as well. I know, I know, we were supposed to make use of audio editing, but you also said we could record whatever we wanted so I wanted to recreate the story that I had told so many times before to all my friends who consider it incredibly creepy, the pauses I left in were ones that I left in during the times when I was telling the story, as those are times when people would gasp or ask a question or say something like “oh my god, are you serious?” I used Adobe Audition for this project, an entertaining little program that is actually an Adobe branded version of Cool Edit Pro, a program I had used for a few years prior to using this. Unfortunately, I am terrible at audio and I don’t really know what sounds good with music, so I neglected to add sounds and things like that. I’m pretty much the opposite of what someone would call an audiophile, caring very little for music or things of that nature, which pretty much alienates me from most of the ‘normal’ people.
Yes, it’s weird not to listen to music, and I guess it is kind of weird not to want to add sound effects, but again, if I am just going to be telling a straight up story using words, I didn’t think that it was entirely appropriate to add “NEWS BULLETIN” esque sounds. Now, my story is 100% true, nothing is made up, the names are all correct, and things like that. I didn’t work from a script, but I’ll make a transcript for it. The reason I didn’t work from a script is, like I said, because I’ve told the story so many times before I didn’t think it necessary to do so. I find scripts incredibly rigid, though I probably would have just ignored most of what was written and added my own quips to what I had already written (which would likely have already been filled to the brim with quips so therefore it would have been doubly ludicrous.) All in all, I think it came out sounding alright, and it was simple enough to record and do the very little bit of editing that I did to make it sound “better.”

While our photographs are amature shots, what sets these photos that look amature apart from you and I?

Personally, I don't find much of a difference between amateur photo's like that and professional. Sure, some people may have stylistic differences, but hey, a photo is a photo in the end. It all just comes down to personal preference.


Would a ficticious documentary be much different or would the same rules apply as a non-fiction one?

Ever seen "Waiting for Guffman"? Hilarious fictitious documentary, and I've seen a few other films like that, just can't think of any names off the top of my head. No rules apply when it comes to fiction, but there should be at least some artistic integrity when it comes to non-fiction documentaries.

It seems as if the author was saying that you do not have to script out what people are saying, simply let them say what they want and get the excitement in their voice, etc. and then later you can make it into what you want to make it. Do you think it is possible for the documentary maker to be completely unobjectionable?

Of course it isn't. They set out to make one specific documentary about something, and by god, they are going to do what they set out to do, be it to bad mouth President Bush by editing out everything good that was said about them, or by not even using the interviews that praised him. It's all whatever the filmmaker wants.

Week Eight

While we've all heard of Michael Moore, and how he bends the truth to get what he wants, how do you feel about the use of interviews and splicing to get exactly what story you want from a documentary?

What do you think about not using any interviews at all for a documentary, like Hampe was speaking about, and just doing what you can with whatever footage you may have?

Would you rather have a high definition documentary, A LA Planet Earth, or something with Grainy footage? (yes, I know this is a leading question, but hey, what can I say?)

3/3 Answers

Posted by Will:
In her article, Shipka supports Wysocki’s claim students should be composing text “using a wide and alertly chosen range of materials…” In your opinion, should English professors, for instance, also explore this idea or is this concept better suited for multimedia productions?

I personally think this is better suited for multimedia productions, unless the course is based on thinking outside of the box. I know many english majors that have quite a bit of trouble coming up with things outside of the box or really on the spot, they are meticulous and plan everything out before hand. I personally would like to do random stuff, but I know many other english majors would balk at the idea.


What are some advantages and limitations associated with producing your narrative in an audio format?

You sound awesome, and you can muck around with things. Or you could potentially sound terrible and not say anything interesting. Depends on how well you are at voicing your opinions and how confident you may or may not be.

How will this project inform/influence/impact your scripting of the narrative?

It won't. I'm just going to come up with something completely ludicrous and off the wall anyway.

1. Sound is a big part of our life. Name a time when you turned everything off such as the tv, radio, computer etc. and actually listened to what else is around you. Did you notice a big difference?

I've been going fishing every year up in the North Woods for a long time, just sitting out in the middle of the lake, listening to the sounds of nature. It's quite interesting, and when you leave all your electronics elsewhere it's a completely different experience.

2. Have you ever wondered how sound is made? What do u think are the different steps or processes put into making particular sounds in a movie, a song or television show?

Actually, I took an ECE course where we started making our own sounds via electrical signals. That was really cool. But, other than that, I think I'm fairly fail at making sounds or figuring out music, I have no ear for music nor do I particularly

3. Have you ever put captioning on when watching a movie or television? Do you find yourself watching the words more or listening to people talk? Why do you think this happens?

I actually do enjoy captioning movies and sometimes catching the difference between what is said and what is written. I tend to read the words more than actually watch the screen, and do think that's kind of a problem because I tend to miss all the nuances of everything that was visual on the TV and all that jazz. But overall... it makes for some lines that you couldn't understand before to be much better and clearer.

2/24

So, sound. What is it? I personally tend to usually have sound on in everything that I do, but recently my laptops speakers had an issue. What would you do if you had no sound with your daily computing activities?

Music is a daily part of almost everyone's life. Are you one of those people that likes to listen to music during your walk to class, and ignoring everyone around you? If not, how do you feel about these people?

Several other people have already questioned this, but I am also curious, how many times do you not watch a movie in a foreign language simply because of subtitles, and preferring to hear what is said than read it?

Finally... yeah... apparently I fail at finding podcasts. Anyone?

What the people were thinking when they took these pictures.

Will: "What I do when I wake up, where I go, and the crazy things I see with my family, if I were a baby."

Terri: "My trip to a local eatery, Buffalo Wild Wings, and how they actually let me take pictures without forcing me to stop, oh, and all the booze that I really wanted to drink, but I didn't because I had to continue to take pictures and at least be somewhat sober to know what I was doing, also, I probably work here."

Sean: "No pictures up."

Sara: "Missed Class. Whoops."

Sam: "My day in the lovely city that is champaign. Also, I enjoy bikes. A lot. Especially my bike. But I don't like doing things that involve riding bikes and taking pictures at the same time. I do, however play lacrosse when it's cold out and spend a lot of time in empty buildings. This is my journey of things I like."

Ryan: "I'm a narcissistic dick."

Roberto: "Ooh, the quad on a cold, rainy day. And then my apartment at night and me removing my shoes and getting ready to relax. My stairs are crooked for some reason, and I totally just want to use my laptop and go to bed, but I have to do other things, like get ready for said sleep. eventually, by 11:30, I can sleep. What a long, arduous day."

Rahul: “My friend totally woke up, brushed his teeth, and ran to class cause he was late. He likes to sleep and read the newspaper, but he doesn’t like to pay attention,. For some reason he sleeps a lot and likes to use his cellular telephone. I swear, he sleeps so much that he needs coffee but it doesn’t really help him, because now he has a mess to deal with and is broke. What a shame, maybe he should just kick some ass and do his normal routine, or sleep some more, I think that’s what should happen.”

Octavio: “Problems with pictures! But… I fixed them. Look at me, the thinker, when I start to eat apples, my pictures get all funky. Then I stop eating, and decide I want some Doritos and for some reason I just can’t stop eating things. Now I want some peanut butter, but… That’s just want I want. I don’t know if I’ll actually eat them.”

Mark: “Damn, whats with all this snow? I have to walk through it? Look what I’ve done to the precious snow! IVE MADE TRACKS! And now I’m just going to take pictures of them. I bet they melt soon. But wait, someones made tire tracks? WHAT KIND OF PERSON DOES THAT? Gosh, might as well go drinking to get rid of this depression. And then make some snow angels.”

Liz: “Hrm… It’s a dude, staring at a girl. And then we see their necks, and they look at us. Look at the eyes! AND HOW THEY LOVE EACH OTHER! Oh man, We keep noticing different features of people, and then full bodies, but mostly just different features. I can’t really understand why I’m so attracted to looking at different people in these ways, but I think it’s super neat.”

Grace: “I wake up at a fake time, in the morning. Then I do some healthy stuff and work out. I like myself some water. And some powerade, but I really like to work out. And be healthy. So I’m showing you all the healthy stuff I do and the aftermath of said healthystuff. You should be more like me and kick some ass, like seabass.”

Erin: “I’m totally a homeless dude. And then there are dangerous things that go on. I’m showing you all the bad things that hapopen and the aftermaths of them, in the world, nothing is good. Even you’ll get towed. Don’t do anything, you’ll get scolded, it’s bad stuff. Look at that, we’ve got guns in computer labs and people just getting messed up and perishing. WHAT IS WRONG WITH AMERICA AND THE REST OF THE WORLD?

David: “Look! Babies and stuff during the day, it’s really crapy driving conditions but I think I should drive and take cool pictures anyway. And now there are fires, for some reason and floods. I don’t know whats really going on with the world, these days, but I sure as hell can that everything is a disaster!”

Bill: "Girl wandering around a park, seeing the way that nature has lead things to be, but, it starts out with man made objects and eventually transfers to nature. And then goes back to man-made stuff. Eventually cries and wanders down a long, dusky road to an old train. Basically just a girl wandering around, and it's pretty cool. Mostly straightened paths, and getting home, it's time to put on a coat."

Dan K.: "The earth, is far away, but drawings, now those are close to home. And in between them we have city shots. CITY SHOTS! The cartoon drawings are probably commenting on the picture above or below them, but I can't really tell yet... working on it. Nope, because the baby is sleeping and then there is a sandwich and there are now no longer city pictures. Maybe it's an abstract story about love, the universe, and everything. CUPID! TWICE!"

Dan B.: "Red red red everywhere, red red red, lots of crazy stuff is going on that I don't understand, it seems like it's possibly the lighting set for a stage or something like that? Musical? I'm not entirely... yep, definitely a stage with musical instruments. Interesting lighting and stuff to begin, I just have no idea about most of these things."

Cynthia: "It's a birthday and family celebration, going through the past to celebrate your 20th birthday and the things that you got to do on it. How cute. Looks like you traveled somewhere and had lots of meals with family. Some family does not look at all terribly happy, but that dog looks like he wants someone to pet him. Looks like a game of some type and then you went to hooters and there were puppiies and then it was the end."

Adam: "Dooooo dooo! Monkey workout day! Playing video games, doing pullups, doing pushups doin' crazy stuff and now totally making some delicious delicious pizza. Now gonna watch some cartoons, and to top it off, I'ma get sloshed and then jump off a building. But wait! my buddy the bear has saved me and now we are eating a lot of food and having hot chocolate and being loved. And eating ice cream and kit kats."

Sean: "It's drinking time! Lets do some drinking. Le's do a lot of drinking, actually, with friends. And play beer pong. And have an apartment at the same place as me. JOES STAMP! But for some reason I went to 88 instead. And got pictures with some girls that I know and don't like at all. BLACK OUT"

Sara: "Time to go ahead and read this magazine. And then this other one. Next to a computer, but I don't really want to read the magazine, just want to look at the ridiculous advertisements inside of it. Why don't we look at all these magazines ads?"

Masha: "In the union, courtyard cafe, people are studying, gonna go take pictures of this dude and his studies, and see what he's like. He's kinda cool.

Photo Journal... Kind of?

Well let's just say that I had quite a difficult time attempting to come up with something to do for this. I think Champaign is an incredibly bland city and there isn't much to see here, so I wanted to go ahead and use photos from my last summer. Unfortunately, I realized I took no photos, my friend Adam had taken all of them, as he's somewhat of a professional photographer and I figured he could take better pictures. So that choice was out. Then I thought "well how about my daily routine, going from my apartment to class?" Again, Champaign being a bland city gave me stop. That, and I just am not awake enough in the morning, nor do I really want to be taking a bunch of random photos of places while people are walking by. So that was another strike out. Then, as I was surfing facebook, I thought I struck gold. I noticed that in several of my pictures, I was wearing the same, white with black stripes button down shirt. I figured I could make it a ‘journey of the shirt’ and take pictures from each place that that shirt had been and put them up in a cool “Well that shirts been all over the world” sort of thing. But, unfortunately as I continued to look through my pictures, it dawned on me that not only do I not take a lot of pictures, but I didn’t wear that shirt in more than 10. Damn. So then things started to get more difficult, with me attempting to come up with various things that I could do, not wanting to do anything that would actually come from Champaign limited me. Unfortunately, I ended up going with pictures that at one point had been used as profile pictures, and the majority of them had been taken right here in my very favorite city. Now, the pictures don’t exactly tell a story, but they do show the 4 year journey that I’ve had since Freshman year. Not that it’s been a particularly long or hard journey, but a journey never the less. I found it interesting the different styling of clothes and hair that I’ve gone through in the last four years, and I wonder where I’ll end up in another four. Will I have extremely short hair? Long hair, yet again? Will I continue to buy clothes from stores like Express and wear only those? Or will I have evolved into something more sophisticated, wearing only suits? Or, is it possible that I will have become bored with looking this damn good (kidding) and just start bumming around in hoodies and sweaters, or some incredibly over-sized t-shirts? Only time will tell, and I think that adding to this in a few years will be an incredibly interesting thing to do and then subsequently view.

Q Answers

1. Berger states, "The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe." What does he mean by this and give one example.

I think that he means we all have our own different perceptions based on what our own experiences have been. For instance, I see this keyboard that I am typing on right now incredibly terrible and way too loud, but that's because I'm used to my quiet, easy to type on, keyboard. However, the guy sitting next to me was telling me how much he enjoyed these keyboards, because he has one and is used to it.

2. Berger also says "Images were first made to conjure up the appearances of something that was absent. Gradually became evident that an image could outlast what it represented;" Think of one photograph or picture that you see everyday and explain why you think it was taken in the first place, what you see now and lastly what other might see.

I can't really think of a picture I see everyday, but if there was a picture to talk about, I guess I would talk about one that was created of what London would look like after the end of the world. I see it as something incredibly cool, as it was my background for some time after I got back from there, and everyone that looked at it, at first glance, couldn't tell what it was at first and eventually found it morbid. I found it to be much more than that, and I think it was just showing that even after everything is gone, those monuments would still stand.

3. Think of an image that has been recreated and has lost it's value or uniqueness.

I think the Apple logo, having gone from rainbow colored to just one solid color, has lost it's uniqueness. It has become like anything else, a quick brand reminder.

Questions

I don't know about you, but I find McCloud to kind of be pretentious. That might be because I read it last year for English 300 and we all agreed that he was pretentious. With that said, however, do you think that the pictures are more important than the words in most places? If there were pictures as well as words, would you continue to read or would you look at the pictures and ignore the words?

Do you ignore things that are around you, or do you actually take notice of everything that is around you? That is to say, when you walk around campus, do you actively look at all the signs that are up and their pictures, or do you only get your eyes caught by things that are glossy and force you to look at them?

What about when you go to McDonald's and you look at the menu, with pictures of delicious looking meals, only to get something that doesn't look delectable at all, it looks like it was put together by a blind guy?

Q and A Feb. 10th

Sorry about my lack of posts, have been trying to get caught up with everything and it's a pain. Here's a word of advice, don't get sick! But in all seriousness, I should be caught up soon.

Sara had quite a few questions, and my responses are as follows:

Wow, that's a plethora of questions. Let's just answer a few, shall we? In response to taller books being children's books, no I do not find it ironic. Why, you ask? Because children's books generally have large pictures and because of that, they need to be bigger. I know, i know, you said because of the size of our hands... Yeah I don't really think that has anything to do with it.

News Sites using bold colors and flashy graphics is their attempt at attracting more visitors. I think that news sites, while they mostly try to be serious, without anything to grab someones attention, they will unlikely click on many links and read the articles, thus the site loses out on revenue from ads.

Personally I don't expect texts to be visually appealing, I expect them to have words, and have a font that is easy to read. I find when pictures are present that I tend to ignore what is being said and just look at the pictures and their captions, basically trying to absorb all my information from that as opposed to reading the entirety of the page. With that said, however, I do tend to read the page if that sort of thing is very interesting to me.

Stencil Project

In a world where people are getting closer, sometimes they get too close. As is the myth of Icarus and his father's wax wings, when people get too close, they happen to burn and fall. This is a commentary on people getting too close to something that they desire, they don’t see the consequences that are going to befall them. People these days don’t listen to their closest friends about things that they definitely should. For instance, when a guy is getting too close to a girl, he is blinded to anything that could potentially be wrong with said person. Anyway, I basically thought that Icarus was a good choice as his folly is a good lesson for people to learn and to keep in mind when they are trying something new or getting close to other people. I usually wouldn’t think this would be a social problem, but these days there have been far too many people that I know that have gotten hurt from becoming too close with someone too quickly and can’t tell what exactly is going on with anything or anyone, and their friends are lost in it.

I came up with the idea when I was just sitting around thinking about how I’ve been trying to help friends out who have been having problems with significant others, that turn to shit right quick, and I feel bad trying to help, etc. So this is a cautionary piece saying “Don’t get too close, you’ll fall and perish.”

I chose the blue paper because it seemed like a more uplifting, sky themed color. I would have gone with yellow for the sun, but I thought that maybe making everything white would be a little more like they are clouds, and I think that is what people are feeling like when they are getting too close, they feel like they are on cloud 9 and nothing could hurt them. So the cloud-esque theme was definitely something I was going for, I just wasn’t sure how I could make the pieces stand out more bubbly, more cloudy. I sprayed it three different times and the one that I’ve posted is what I liked the best, I just did different prints from different angles and distances, and this one looks the best. The other ones are just… ridiculous.

Unfortunately if I were to have this somewhere, like on a shirt or on a wall or something, I don’t think anyone would really understand it. I mean, yeah, they would probably get the Icarus theme, but I’m not sure if people would understand that it’s a commentary on how people do get far too close. If I were far more artistic, I think I would be able to make a sun look kind of like a person, so it would signify that Icarus is not only getting too close to the sun, but he’s also getting far too close to a person and being blinded.

Hi, I'm Ryan and I'm a rhetoric major, senior year, final semester, or at least that's what I'm hoping. Unfortunately I just came down with mono so I've been in bed for about two weeks, and hope I don't have to be in bed for much longer, I absolutely loathe it, and at this rate, there's a chance I might have to drop classes. Awesome, huh? I personally can't stand the term "blog" because well, it just sounds like someone throwing up. Think about it, the next time someone says "blog" just imagine them over a toilet. Or maybe I'm just crazy. I love to write in various different mediums, and have a genuine interest in writing.

I used to read a lot of printed media, but that has recently changed to mostly reading stuff online. I'll occasionally write, but it is very rare that I write with a pencil and paper, it's mostly computerized. I tend to read www.forums.somethingawful.com, though none of the crazy subforums, just "General Bullshit" for all my worldly news needs.


Here's a recent facebook photo, for when I ever make it to class. Damn mono.

Info 390 and Mono

Great way to start off the semester, sick in bed with mono! Hopefully I'll be out of bed soon enough, as I really can't stand being in bed anymore. Been here for nearly two weeks and I'm just about to go crazy. Hope to see everyone in class very soon!