Msg me!

I've noticed that people communicate a lot differently now than they used to.
If people want to talk to me, or let me know about something, they no longer really tell me in person, or ring the house phone.

I generally get contacted by people via them ringing my iPhone, texting me, emailing me, Facebooking me or sending me IMs via MSN Messenger. Because I spend a lot of time online, it's the easiest way for me to be contacted.
Recently with uni, I have also been contacted via OASIS for official communications, but it seems that most of my communication methods are mobile or online.

Sort of says something about the way we're headed with technology, hey.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

So, I got to thinking about the news the other day.

Where do I get my news from and why?
I don't watch TV, I only record the shows I like, then watch them all in one swift blow, so I don't watch TV news unless its on during dinner, but then, I still don't like it. I guess it's something to do with the kind of stuff they show on TV news, all this imbalance of current affairs with actual important news, whether local or international. Plus those feel-good stories get really annoying.

I prefer to get my information online. Not from news websites, however, but direct from source. As the only real news that interests me is related to gaming, technology and media, I tend to hang around sites like Friendcodes for all my Nintendo Information, as it is a nintendo funded site where the news comes straight from source, or even IGN for my gaming news.

Any other information I tend to get sent to me from friends, or I hear over the radio (AM radio only, I don't like FM radio)

That's basically where I get my information from. Aren't I boring

It's showtime!

I won't bore you with my essay...after much deliberation and creativity, here's my remediated text. Let me know what you think.

From Kingdom to Comedy
Kingdom Hearts II from the eyes of in-game characters
REMEDIATION TEXT

Roxas
ENTRY ONE – Beginning of the Game
“Far out guys, I’m tripping out here. One minute I’m hanging out with Hanyer, Pence and Olette, and the next, I’m on some weird glass platform with all these stairs. I have no idea how I got there, all I knew was that I needed to get out. As I ran up the stairs, I came across these little black things that look like overgrown ants. How original. Must...squash...ants, and what better to do it with but a giant key that magically appears in my hand? When I made it to the top, I looked down and saw myself in the stained-glass floor. What the heck?”

ENTRY TWO
“I guess I’m going crazy, or have some form of schizophrenia. I keep seeing these guys in black coats. They’re everywhere! I can’t get away, I mean, I couldn’t even get to the beach because they got in the way! No one else sees them and Hayner thinks I’m crazy. Not good. We even went to the abandoned mansion and I saw this really cute blonde girl in the window, but no one else did. I think I need help. My memories are slowly leaving. I don’t know what’s going on anymore. Maybe I’m not who I thought I was...or maybe it’s just a brain freeze from too much sea-salt ice cream.”

Sora
ENTRY ONE
“Man, what a nap. It feels like I’ve been a sleep for a year, and I have the biggest wedgie right now! Oh man, my clothes are too small. Maybe I have been asleep for a year, but how can that be? Wait, it couldn’t be that cute blonde girl, could it? I swear she didn’t slip anything in my food, or maybe she did. Wait, I don’t eat. I travel all around the worlds and not once do I eat anything. Man, I must be like a human camel!”

Kairi
ENTRY ONE
“That darn Sora, I wish he would come back. He promised! Now I stand here every night trying to remember his name and watching the ocean. Mum keeps telling me off for coming home late and I have to eat dinner cold!”

Sora
ENTRY TWO
Well, Donald and Goofy are still here, so this definitely isn’t a dream. I finally got some new clothes, so I was able to get rid of that damn wedgie, but now I’m stuck travelling around in that small 2-man spaceship made out of gummi blocks with three people in it. Give me a wedgie any day! At least I can run around on different worlds now. That reminds me…where did all my keyblade charms go? I had the ultimate weapon before I went to sleep and now I have nothing but the lousy kingdom key, which takes for-EVER to beat anything! I wanna know who stole them, so I can go kick their butt!”

Riku
ENTRY ONE
“Geez, all this time in the darkness is making me look like an albino. I’m all pale and my hair is all silver. Wait, it was that colour before…phew. I do however have a new party trick. I can turn into a tall, angry man wearing too much fake tan. It’s pretty neat. I found Kairi the other day while walking through a dark doorway. What’s she doing hanging around in that part of town anyways?”

Axel
ENTRY ONE
“Man, I miss Roxas. There’s nothing like spending time with that crazy mop of blonde hair. I just wanna hear his voice one more time, is that so bad? I’ve looked everywhere for him, but I can’t find him anywhere. It just fires me up! I should stop setting stuff on fire, I’ve gone through about 12 of these damn Organisation cloaks and they’re starting to charge me for them!”

Sora
ENTRY THREE
(sings)“One thousand heartless all over the ground…one thousand monsters down there! Take one down, spin it around, eight hundred heartless all over the ground!” (Stops singing.) “Oh how that song makes the Battle of a Thousand Heartless so much more fun!”

Xemnas
ENTRY ONE
“Damn, I look sexy! I mean c’mon. What’s not to love about my hairless face, orange skin and long silver hair? Plus I’m the bad guy in this story, and chicks dig bad guys. They do, don’t they? What if they don’t? Maybe I picked the wrong side…I wonder if Ansem will let me go back on the good side. If not, I dug myself a hole that I can’t get out of, so I might as well go out with a bang...by running down the side of a building at such as speed that I run crashing into the ground!”

Sora
ENTRY FOUR
“Well, that was really disappointing. You didn’t really need to know anything that happened between last time I was here to now. IT goes along the lines of that the evil guy is Xemnas, Xehanort’s nobody. Who is he? Nobody, exactly! The organisation just wanted to stop me and when I confronted Xemnas, pretty much killed himself! I didn’t even have to use my super-sexy new Final Form that I spent about 60 hours trying to obtain by changing into random Drive Forms continuously! You know how many times I had to become Anti Sora??!! Anti Sora is the stupidest form I have ever seen. all it can do is run around swiping its overly pointy fingers at things! It’s so useless. I guess that’s what I get for becoming a heartless in the first game though.
Anyways, I guess that’s over. I thought now I could just go home and hang out with Kairi and Riku, but no, the King or someone sent us a message in a bottle. Now we’re off to start a new adventure…again. I better not get another wedgie this time!

Stop! Filler Time!

So, now for what anime fans call a filler, a pointless, seemingly random episode used to fill in time, while the writers work on developing the actual series plot.

Anywho, in preparation for my up-coming lectures, I have caved to pressure and got myself a twitter account. Feel free to follow me @athusgorek although I cannot commit to regular tweets currently, but you never know.

AG//.

(Filler courtesy of the baseball filler episode of Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo, one of my favourite filler episodes ever.)

Formalities, formalities...

I thought that I'd share with you the plan for my up-coming essay, just to ease your eagerness to see the finished product, allowing me more time to finish :P

Text- Kingdom Hearts 2 (Video Game)
Remediation Form – Diary Entries

Reception of Remediation
- For Fans of the Game, or those who are wanting to understand the storyline better
- A parody of the storyline told from the characters own personal perspective, so hardcore fans may not appreciate it
- May spoil story for new fans

Production
- Requires simple reproduction of story via parody
- Convert story into this simple diary format, with sections for each major character
- Easily created, simple process

Distribution
- Internet distribution base
- Forums, Slash sites, parody sites, video game sites
- Spread via transfer, download and word-of-mouth
- Easily circulated all around the world in a matter of minutes

Transformation Underway

My remediation has begun, I have started to transform my video game into a text form. It's great fun, actually. I have had to be creative, clever and witty to get it started, or it would have started off as the most boring read that anyone had ever seen. I had issues with getting ideas though, but as it turns out, my little brother is as weath of puns, jokes and clever remarks that he can make up on the spot, so he was able to give me some of my starting ideas. I must credit him with the version of ninety-nine bottles, as it had me rolling on the floor when he and I started work on it. It's great to have someone to bounce ideas off of, as he was able to tell me what worked, where I was going wrong, and what else I could add.

I was glad, though, that I didn't have to worry about technological contraints, as I picked a nice, clean, simple format to use that got rid of all the hassle of technology. That's not to say that I was without issues... writer's block is a killer sometimes... like now, where I'm struggling to come up with the finishing touches to my assignment.
I have to start on the written portion of it soon, too!
o.O

AG//.

(Kudos to Krazy Chibi for the awesome picture!)

Remediations are everywhere

So, I sat down to watch a movie the other day, and as I sat down and went to pull the DVD out of its case, it hit me. The movie was another example of a remediated text.
Here is a clip from it, in case you don't believe me.



Being based on a video game, even though it is set a year after the game itself, it is still a remediation. This made me realise that there are so many remediated texts around, and we don't even realise. Video games based off movies, or vice-versa, action figures/plushies of my favourite anime characters are all remediations!

AG//.

Copywrong?

So, copyright...just what I wanted to address...

Anyways, the issue of copyright is one that I believe really needs a refresher. There's so much that we are not able to legally do now that should be legal. But that's another story.

For my remediation, I am simply going to comvert the storyline of Kingdom Hearts II into a series of diary entries from the characters within the game. There will be the inclusion of character names and some other 'copyrighted' ideas, but with me pretty much writing my own story, I don't think that there will be an issue with copyright. Simply using someone's name can't breach copyright, can it?

Ponderously...
AG//.

Interactive...

So, an interactive text, huh. Well, that's an easy one. There's no text more interactive than a video game! Being a passion of mine, it's an obvious choice. You get to control the action, what you do, how you play the game. There's noone sitting on your shoulder telling you exactly how to do something and it doesn't play itself, there needs to be a person playing it. This interactivity makes video games special.

One specific type of video game that is overly interactive is the idea of the MUD. With a MUD, or multi-user dungeon, the players all must interact with the text/graphical environment to complete the game, which is no easy task, let me tell you. If you pick a MUD with some real disruptive players, there's no telling how long it could be before you finish!

So many actors, yet no real Actors involved

Well, as it turns out, actors aren't just drama nerds who act for money. Turns out that when looking at the media, actors refer to all the processes, corporations and people involved in the production of a text, each there for a specific purpose.
I then compiled a list of all the actors involved in my chosen text, Kingdom Hearts II. Enjoy, and I hope your head doesn't explode.

Kingdom Hearts II

Media Actors

Director/Producer – Head of Project, Overseer and visionary for project. Has final say on finished product.

Writers – Write up script for game, prepare roles for voice actors, overseen my producer/director.

Designers/Artists/Modelers – Responsible for all the characters, landscapes, objects, interface in game. Creates the visions dreamed up by director.

Music – Composed, played and recorded by a team overseen by the director to fit the scenery created by designers and events within the script.

Programmers/Animators- Bring life to the characters and events within the game and create the interface that the audience will interact with to play the game.

Voice Actors - The people who bring the characters in the game to life with real voices, as if they were real people able to reach out to the audience. They are selected by the director and read off the script provided to them by the writers.

Distribution/Merchandising- Responsible for the release of the game and all promotional material, clothing, action figures, etc. to be released along with the game.

Quality Assurance (Beta Testers)- Iron out all the kinks within the gameplay and determine whether it is suitable/fun/good for the audience.

Audience - The ones who purchase the game and the other merchandise that is brought out along with the game. They are the main market that the Director/Creator was trying to reach when they decided to create the game. If it is not well received by the audience, then there will be no profit for the companies involved.

Classification – Declares the game playable by the public and creates limitations on what age group it is suitable for and who is able to purchase the game.

So many people, yet without all of them, the game would not exist.

AG//.

What? Kingdom Hearts 2 as the resource for my assignment?

Kingdom Hearts II, a favourite game of mine.

There's something appealing about the whole Square-Enix/Disney crossover that's so appealing. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I love both Square-Enix games and disney Movies? Perfect compbination. With an awesome gameplay, amazing movie and unforgettable characters like Riku, Sora and Kairi, there's almost nothing better. The story is complex, compelling and interesting that you are sitting on the edge of your chair as you play the game. It's such a good game.

Perfect for me to use in my first two assignments, Identifying media actors and then the remediation project...boy, do I have some great ideas for it :P

Change of motivation

All right. From now, I have decided that to help me complete my uni assignment, I will convert this blog into my journal for my Engaging Media class. It's gonna be great, I have some sweet stuff planned for my assignments, Geek style!!!

I'm alive, I swear!

Well, after a prolonged hiatus, here I am. Back to writing.

Uni's been so busy, so time has been really limited. I mean, cmon, i've done assignments like every day and every weekend since May began. Oh well. one essay to go and I'm done for the semester. Score one for no exams! That means 8 weeks holidays, where I shall bide my time working, playing video games and sleeping in. Oh. I'm also gonna do a few design jobs too to help me keep in practise.

Getting a tablet for my PC too, its just a small cheapo one, and even tho it's prolly not that good, it'll allow me to get used to them and to save up for a better one. It'll really make design work easier so i don't have to draw with a damn mouse.

Gonna be a good few weeks I reckon. That'll be a change from the business that is my life at current!

Ducks and Pucks

I must thank my manager at work, Billy, for getting me back into the sporting team that I loved as a kid, the Anaheim Ducks. Yes, anyone born in the early '90's and maybe even a little earlier will remember the Mighty Ducks TV show that we used to watch on Saturday Disney every weekend and the toys that we had. I still have my mighty ducks figurines, the goalie Wildwing and combat Grin. Boy, they bring back memories. I did like the movies they did with real people, but it was the cartoon series that made me love the Ducks. With the playoffs going on at the moment and the Ducks into the second round, I shall support them as best I can, even tho i dont have foxtel. I shall sit at my computer and listen to the games with my figurines on my desk next to me and cheer them on! Now to find a copy of the animated movie and im all set!

/endrant//.

Where have all the old gamers gone?

I Read some interesting info about gaming today, where they say that hardcore gaming is dying. The younger gamers are opting for softer, more family friendly gaming and retro gaming. But who said that retro gaming isn't hardcore?

I refuse to believe that the consoles that you and i grew up with cannot be classed as hardcore gaming. We can still spend 500 hours on a single game, jsut liekany modern MMORPG or First Person Shooter. I love collecting old games and consoles, I have in my possession at the moment, a Nintendo 64, a PSone and a PS2, along with a game boy pocket, colour and a gameboy advance SP. I am aiming to collect a stack more games for my N64 and PSone and acquire a NES and SNES sometime in the near future. Games like super mario and 007 golden eye have as much, if not more, hardcore gaming worth than the newer consoles. You know you're a hardcore gamer when you can beat super mario blindfolded xD. To play and beat older games that we grew up with is to me, the most hardcore kind of gaming there is. As much as i love the new consoles and the AMAZING games that are coming out, I don't think you can call yourself a hardcore gamer without being dedicated to retro gaming also.

Thoughts?
/endrant//.

to Meme or not to Meme, that is the question.

Today's thought is on internet memes,
Well, you either love her or hate her with a passion. That's right, I'm talking about Boxxy. To be honest, I had never even heard of Boxxy until 4 days ago, when I was browsing the interwebz and came across a .gif of a girl's facial expressions. After some digging and research, I found out that her name is Boxxy, and that she became an instantly famous and widely hated internet meme. Her videos and images were quickly posted all over the world's biggest and most feared forum, 4chan.

That's right, I delved into the depths of /b/ to find out about Boxxy. Now to explain /b/ to you, if you have never heard of it. It's the biggest and most feared forum on the internet where anything goes, you name it, it's there. It's also the place where most internet fads start. Rickroll, LolCatz, Demotivators, they all started on 4chan's /b/.

It's crazy how a video of a baby laughing, or a duck with spinning wheels (duckroll) or fake links that take you to a rick astley video (rickroll) can become famous. It all happens on /b/. People post these images, videos and then other users post replies and responses, helping them gain momentum on the internetz. They can also get famous via 'trollz' where people post meaningless replies to bump them to the top of the forum. That's what happened to Boxxy. At one point, the whole first page of /b/ was full of Boxxy threads. Everyone started to hate her and 4chan had to come up with a way to get rid of her. They attempted to hack and search everywhere for her real name, identity, address and other details, but no trace of her existing was found. She had dropped off the internet radar for now. 3 months later, she made a video replying to all the rumours that had started during that time. She had been watching silently. They had to crash 4chan to remove all traces of boxxy.

Her videos are of a completely different matter, all they are is her talking to a specific person to whom she made the video, but she is completely hyperactive and talks crazily, making for an entertaining video. She's awesome.

But what about other internet memes and fads. What of the starwars kid, whose lightsabre video made us all laugh, yet he committed suicide after the video got famous. The kid from Chocolate Rain video? Who knows where he is. Noone's seen or heard from him since that video. Can an internet meme have the same expiry date as a real actor/ess or comedian? Do they have shorter expiry dates because you can't paparazzi them in the flesh? They don't release their private worlds so we can't stalk them either.

What of internet memes? What's your favourite or least favourite meme?
Are you a hater or fellow fan of Boxxy?
/endrant//.

manga, maniacs and superpowers

I come to you from my desk once again, with the latest Shonen Jump Magazine and a few brownies and cream in front of me. Working on a video for my dad, whilst waiting for it to render, i thought I'd kill some time.

I got to thinking, what if superpowers were real and we could all have one power? The idea of mutants, or superheroes would go out the door, because everyone would be in the same boat and it would become the norm. Personally, i reckon that the coolest super power to have is Telekinesis. No, not Telepathy, I dont want to know what you're thinking 24/7, but telekinesis, the ability to move things with your mind. You could move and levitate objects and people and that would be awesome. It would give you the ability to fly because you jsut levitate yours shoes on your feet and fly around. I think that moving things out of people's hands or pockets would be funny, to watch them scramble for them as i levitate their wallet onto the roof of a passing car. Damn, I'm clever. Note to self, steal someone's wallet and put it on top of a passing car just for the lulz.

Anywho, any other thoughts on superpowers?
/endrant//.