RUTHL3SS's blog

Dear class,

I wish I could say each and every one of you is known to me not only by your real life appearance but also by your cool, online pseudonym.. however.. I cannot.

Regardless, you all were fab, and I enjoyed looking at the backs of your heads, sides of your faces, your victories/losses at tetris, what one of you had for lunch every tuesday/thursday, and, of course, Professor Whalen's smiley blonde face.
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Why is it that my beloved Sims is the best selling computer game of all time?

Is it because, according to Marie-Laure Ryan, computer games are designed for a purpose and real life is not? Or, as she says, you can win or lose a game but there are no strict definitions of those terms applied to real life?

Well my friends.. the Sims is neither one nor both nor any of those things. From here forward, when I mention the Sims, I am of course referring to the Sims 2 [sims 3 next year, woo!].
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Choose your own adventure novels are great, entertaining short stories where you are seemingly in control.

This idea, has transcended media boundaries from not only written forms, but now to souly online based text.

The Abominable Snowman had an extra bit about going online and continuing your adventure. This gave you a couple choices, then you died, or got sent back to the book. What a great first step into the online world for these choose your own adventure adventures.
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To help myself get a firm grasp on what to write about for this blog, I simply googled "reality tv."

Very strangely, wikipedia was not numero uno, but an amazing place called REALITY TV WORLD was first.

http://www.realitytvworld.com/

This website is possibly one of the most overwhelming things I have ever seen. The reason I decided to mention all these things is reality TV is a PHENOMENON. This particular website has individual threads with one line news bits about reality stars in trouble, or actors in jail.
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In Thursday's class, we talked for quite a while about how the form affects the content. We discussed examples like the yellow back ground of the hacked version of this blog page making it seem happier, how the page would change if it looked like a diary, or newspaper, etc.

We also touched a bit on the importance of font selection. Perhaps choosing Lucida Handwriting over Times New Roman would make it feel more personal, or how Curlz MT is sillier than Chiller.

"Font selection" is a discussion topic that has the potential to connect all the time periods we learned about.
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In chapter two of Avatars, I was greatly annoyed by the section titled fiction as a transmedial concept. Not because I don't agree that fiction can exist across many different types of media, but because I find Walton's functional definition of fiction absurd.

Kendall Walton has decided that fiction is anything inciting an act of pretend [including thoughts about "make-believe"] and continues to say that all pictures are works of fiction. Even though Marie Ryan explains the existential meaning behind this claim, I do not agree.
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Reading through the Krazy Kat selections put one major thought in my mind... Spongebob. This was a very unusual experience for me as I am not one of those Spongebob fanatics and the particular episode I am thinking of is very creepy [creeped me out, but not my little sister!].
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While "How a Mosquito Operates" was a very entertaining/creepy animation, it is important to realize WHY.

The relatively simple nature of a black and white animation must surely be accompanied by something. No, there aren't any voices narrating.. no there isn't a terrible laughter in the background.. but there is something that remains truly key to successful animation. Music.
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We had to read about a lot of confusing things this weekend.. metapictures.. pictures that talk about pictures.. art that talks about art... pictures that talk about language..
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I can't help but be reminded of Alice in Wonderland when I read this comic. After one of the VERY FIRST pages included a field of mushrooms, and talking flowers later on, I began to wonder if Nemo had been influenced by Alice?

The Disney version of Alice didn't come out until the 1950's, so that possibility is ruled out. BUT. Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Saw came out in 1871! Winsor McCay may have taken a liking to Alice's strange doings.
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If you haven't realized it already, surely you will by Thursday's class. Little Nemo is one humongous book that will force our backs/shoulders to pay a nasty price for its goodies. That is.. unless we are properly prepared to take on this massive load.

After doing some research, I have discovered the best way to carry books. No, it actually does not have to be a rolley backpack, and it is definitely not the stylish one shoulder bag [scoliosis, anyone?].

This is the key to any backpack:

Pack bags with heaviest items on body, lightest on top. This will help stabilize your bag.
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