Past MFA Show

Ok, so I am actually going back and re-writing this post before I ever publish it. I went back and reread the last one I wrote, and it just seemed like I was trying to glorify Second-Life even though that's not what my intention was. Well yeah, before you ask, this post is about the world of Seond-Life. For those of you who don't know what Second-Life or SL for short is, it is a virtual community. Some might describe it as an MMORPG like World of Warcraft, but un-like those kind of games where there is a story or purpose, SL totally relies on the users to make the story. It is a game and yet isn't in the same sense. SL is way for people to create a new personality for themselves or rather an avatar (their character) and be able to start a totally new life for themselves in this virtual world. This is a world where you can almost do anything that you can in real life. With this I mean. You can work a job, go on dates, create a business, and go to clubs. Stuff like that. The world offers more than that. For beginners you are able to make your avatar what ever you really want. It can be male or female, black or white, human or animal and that's just for beginners. You also have the ability to fly. These are only a few of the crazy things you can do in there. It's crazy what people have done with this world. For some, whom may not even have an ounce of artistic ability in real-life or RL have made a name for themselves as an artist in SL. That is sort of what I did for my graduate project. Atec has their own island in SL, and they have a gallery on the island where they are hoping to showcase different artist within SL. Well for my grad project, I wanted to see if I could have a graduate art show with my video art. Well after a little research and a lot of work. I had my art show inside SL. Actually that way it turns I may very well be the very first graduate MFA art show in SL. That alone is a nice little bit of news to be, but aside from the show came off very well. Plus I made a few art connections within the virtual world. Well the whole point for this story is because after all the comments that I have made about people eventually using these different on-line communities to create new media, people are already doing it with this program. People already steam full movies into this world. As sad as this is to say, I actually spent time watching the second half of The Devil Wore Prada in a made up movie theater (what can I say. Anne Hathaway is really cute). People are also creating their own movies using their avatars. This procedure is called Machinama. This is the process where you use a video game engine to create a movie. Of course this is a whole other blog post. It's fascinating. I've even found a company in RL that create movies using SL. Now I would never say that SL is future of in-line communities. Dan and Dean Terry would say the same. Second-Life still has a lot of issues that seem to grow everyday, but it is defiantly the stepping-stone for where the on-line and virtual worlds are going to head. Now I know it may not be for everyone, but I say go ahead and see what you might be able to do with it. I mean it's free. So what do you have to lose by just giving it a try?

The transformers connection to on-line communities

Ok, so I almost just wanted to post this just on the bases of my love for transformers and the fact that they have a pretty cool remix of the theme song that goes along with it, but of course I'm posting this for another reason. So, maybe not everybody knows, but there is a cable station out there devoted to video games and the video game culture called G4TV, and one of the shows they air is called Attack of the Show. ATOS as they call it for short, pretty much talks about everything from video games, new tech toys, movies, etc. Well since they have the new live action Transformers film coming out this summer, they have decided to do a segment called stump the expert. They have pulled one of their staffers, who claims to be an expert on transformers, and have him answer questions sent in by the viewers. Now if a viewer is able to stump him then they get a prize. Pretty much like any contest. Well I'm watching this and he answers one right and one wrong and can't even answer the third one due to being a trick question. Now I’m sorry, but any one that really knows me knows that I have a real love for transformers knowledge and I will go as far to wager that I could go head to head even with the best of them. So I’m sitting here watching some guy that claims to be an expert, but who I would bet just happened to collect all of the boxsets and has watched each episode a couple of times. Well by now the hamster in my head in spinning fast in its wheel and I started thinking about questions I could send in that I know he would never get. So I get to school, go the G4TV website and go to submit a few questions, and as I get to the trivia page it says that I have to log in first. Great, yet another on-line community that thanks to my geekness, I may now have to join just so I can try to get some pleasure on trying to prove this guy a fake. I mean here I am pondering whether or not I want to create an account and join the G4TV forums just to submit a trivia question, but then I started to really think about it more and thought about everything that your able to do through their website. Not only do they have podcast that you can watch but you can get into chat discussions with the host of the shows while they’re airing. In some ways, people are able to be a part of the different shows. Now if that is not a use of new media I don't know what is. I mean like I stated in my last entry, how long will it be before some guy shoots there own independent film, creates a Myspace account and tells people to come watch it on a certain date, to when he will up-load it via Myspace video and you can sit there watch the film with out having to leave the confines of your home and deal with traffic and paying $8-9 dollars for a ticket (since a good amount of theaters don't accept student i.d's anymore). Here we have a Cable station that has created a website that in it's own right has become yet another on-line community, but unlike Myspace, allows interactibilty between user and host that other communities do not. I know there are more things that viewers to do, which I haven’t discovered yet, but I have to ask, do I really want to join yet another community? One that in all reality won’t really ever do much me and will probably just sit there with out any use except for when I go into one of these crazes of thinking that I know a subject better than someone and want to prove them wrong, not for some prize, but just so I might a get a little satisfaction of knowing that hey, I know this subject better than you. I know that sounds pretty petty, but transformers is just one of those subjects that if people think they know something, I like to challenge them at it. Past that, I probably will end up creating myself an account on the site, because I almost would like to see how they might use new media to further the use and interactiveness of their site. It’s fun to see where this is all going. I mean it’s like we are climbing a ladder to see how far technology can take us and we have barley gotten off the first step.

I was going to post on how much Youtube has been pissing me off and why you should use another host provider such as Blip.TV, but as of 2:00 this past morning, I got hit with a stomach virus, and I'm still feeling it. So Hopefully I will be back up and running by tomorrow. Wish me luck.

On-line Communities...

Ok, so I didn’t post this video do show a pod-cast about video games, but rather a pod-cast created by an on-line community. I have been fascinated with on-line communities for quite some time. On of my professor’s pointed out to me just how much time society spends with each other now on-line. I mean if you look at it, I find out more about my friends sometimes through such site as Live-Journal and MySpace than I do in person. In some ways it’s kinds of sad that people tend to spend more times with people via the web then with people in the real world. People seem to be able spend hours playing World of Warcraft or watching videos on Youtube and telling each other their opinions on them, yet they can’t take a half hour to grab a cup of coffee with a friend they haven’t see in two months. It’s fascinating just how much time people can spend on these sites. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m just as guilty as other, but I just wonder what it is that causes us to get some caught up and lost in them. I’m on so many of them. I have accounts on Live-Journal, MySpace, Facebook, Blogger, Youtube, Second-Life, Blip.TV, PodShow and Friendster; though never really use it that much. I’m already looking to start a Flickr account and one for 1-Up.com which given my love for video games that I would already have one. It’s sites like these in which new media is going to be the center of. Whether or not the site acts as the storage space for the media, or it is a place for you to show it people are starting to utilize it like crazy. We haven’t even begun to see what will be done. I mean people are already using MySpace to advertise their bands and music, but how long until someone advertises the premier of their movie by having viewed on their page?

Dragon Quest IX trailer

Here is yet another Game that I am looking forward to this year. The Dragon Quest series has had a small success here in the states, but in Japan it is so popular that it is only second to The Final Fantasy franchise. This ad is in Japanese, but luckily it will be coming in here later this year.

Darth Vader Prank

Ok, this is just plain funny. A friend of mine said it was wrong, but I'm sorry. This is something that I could easily see myself doing.

Super Robot Taisen W

This one comes out of left field, but I had to put it in here. I have a love for giant Japanese robot series. It was a mech series that got me into anime. Of course it was Americanized version of Macross, Robotech that drew me in, but since then, I've been hooked. It also got me that a few years ago I found out that they had been making video games which including robots from many of the different mech anime's released over the years. The only problem is that they are all in Japanese. That didn't stop me though. Even though they have released two of them over here in the states, I still decided to go ahead and import some of them from Japan. Now they're about to release a new one for the Gameboy DS. So it looks like I'm going to have to catch up more on my Japanese.