Summer is Here : Sporadic Posting

Monday is my convocation ceremony, and to celebrate, my mother is coming to visit for a week. It will be the first time in 8 years that she has been to visit. We are excited for her to see our new condo, spend some leisurely summer afternoons on any number of Montreal’s great sidewalk terraces, take in the first night of the International fireworks competition, and of course, make a day out of visiting Ikea, since there are none east of Montreal.

After my mother’s visit, I have a week left in the city, which will mostly be spent getting ready to leave the city for the summer for the east coast (mostly New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island) the summer sun and sandy beaches will do us all some good. Although I will have some internet connection, I imagine posting will become sporadic over the next 7 weeks.

Of course I will still keep reading, working and trying to write. I’ve decided to help me along, I will be moving my “currently reading” list to actual pages so that I can keep notes. What I hope – some day – is that others will add comments to the reading notes – perhaps to spur on a different train of thought I would may have otherwise come to on my own. But if not, at least it will be a good, digital space to save my reading notes.

Summer Project

I was very happy when a yellow package arrived in my mailbox this morning containing the book Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture by Alexander R. Galloway that I will be reviewing for the Research Center for Cyberculture Studies. I am quite excited, as this is my first formal book review for an item within my ‘field’.  I am hoping to be able to be true to the text, in what one of my former MA professors called an “imminent reading”; a write-up that is on the text, about the text, and from the text. In a post-modern world full of opinions and directions, sometimes, it is alot harder than it sounds!

Quickie Review

If you liked the Grand Theft Auto series, for the missions and play style, and have a hankering for the life of a mobster, I suggest picking up The Godfather. Same play model, with a stronger storyline. Player actions are tied to the storyline in a more meaningful way and has the potential of altering the gameplay in a way that GTA lacks. The fact that you can buy this game for $20 makes it all the more worth it.

Thoughts Among Distractions

It isn’t that early in the morning, yet I am finding myself struggling with concentration. The air is heavy with humidity and sound travels clearly. Today is the trials for Montreal’s annual Formula 1 races, and all I can hear are the cars zooming around and around – the track is a good 10km away from my house. In a way, it is kind of cool to be able to hear the cars speeding their way around the track – but it does nothing for one’s concentration. If that was not enough, I also get intermittent cries of delight from many children riding the roller coasters at La Ronde; Montreal’s amusement park – only a few km’s away as well.

Regardless of the sounds of summer, I am attempting to bring my brain back to earth after gobbling up a few fiction novels. I started reading Taylor’s Sources of the Self: the making of modern identity (something I think now that I should have read PRIOR to writing my thesis). Taylor writes in a clear, articulate and often entertaining way (something most theorists forget to do), yet I still find myself re-reading the same sentence three of four times. At this rate, I might be done reading the 521 fine print pages by summer’s end.

I am only at the introduction, but it is interesting to think about identity as something that is tied up in some sort of intrinsic morality. An odd thing to think about if we understand morals to be somewhat of a social construction – and identity, according to Bauman, as something that serves political interests (one of his stories of origin anyways). Taylor attempts to disentangle the idea of an intrinsic morality within the object of the human and the concept of morality based on culture and ideology. I am only at the beginning, but it is an interesting project so far.

Video Games: Dreams & Memories

Over the last few months, I have had vivid dreams about playing games – mmo’s specifically, and even more specifically, some revamped version of EverQuest . The latest one, this morning, I was sitting in a small cubicle room (yet fair size for any actual library), logging into the game – navigating my avatar (oddly, I could never quite see her, much like you rarely see yourself in a dream). This morning’s dream was centered on the music – which I could not turn down for some reason, and I remember commenting to the (elderly male) librarian that although it was great sound surround, I felt bad that it was so loud in a library.

Throughout my play time, I was trying to remember how to send someone a private message. I spent much of the time trying to contact old friends who I knew still played the game often. I remember navigating through what could only have been new zones as I trudged along with a pit of fear in my belly, not knowing where I was going, and what would be on the other side of the inadvertent zone wall I had just crossed. I remember being attacked by a mob, and not being able to remember the sequence of buttons I had to click in order to win; all the while feeling further and further from knowing what I was doing.

I know that alot of this has to do with nostalgia. I can only imagine it is how someone, nearing the end of their lives feels knowing that they used to be good at something, but not quite remembering how or what. When I wake up from these dreams (I have them often, and usually visit the same ‘new’ zones and everything), I have a strong urge to play again. But then I am confronted with so many self-imposed obstacles. I know what makes a good MMO …well, good (personally speaking) – is the community I belong to. For a few years, our guild from EverQuest played other MMO’s together like Dark Age of Camelot, Horizons, Lineage II etc, many guilds do this – but over the years, as people married and had children, their time and money have since been dedicated to other pass times.

I played WoW with some other old EverQuest friends, but never quite got into the more solo nature of the game. Although groups were necessary to complete many of the quests, and the ‘raids’ required a particular amount of people, I never quite got the same ‘community’ feeling I had on my first EQ server; knowing all the major and medium sized guild names; knowing most of the player community if only by name in any of the common areas. I miss the game as well. The graphics, the battles and the often useless skill traces.

Many people will rant about how primitive EQ is/was compared to the current grouping of mmo’s. As I see people moving from WoW to Lord of the Rings Online, and Dungeons & Dragons Online, I get tempted – usually only briefly – to buy the game and make a go of it. But then I wonder how much of the memories of EverQuest, and the other games I mentioned above are really tied to the players I enjoyed them with over the graphics, combat systems and market economies. If what makes an MMO great (or potentially long lasting) is the community (as argued here), then my desire to play another game is not so much a gameplay issue, but a social one. If I accept that, where does that leave me in terms of playing new games let alone my work in Game Studies?

Women in Game …. Stores

 *Please note that this is more of a rant than a coherent piece of writing.

As strides are being made (or at least attempted) towards balancing out the male dominated world of video games (industry to players), I was reminded once more yesterday, that as a woman in a game store (EB Games to be exact), I am always and only someone’s mother or girlfriend.

No matter how much I know what I am talking about; no matter how confidently I walk in, with that dedicated look on my face – I am always overlooked (and often looked down on – at least that’s my sense judging by the tone I get when I DO get service). It makes me want to start spieling off what I know… the new titles, the play sequences, tricks and boss fight strategies. I want to tell them what I do … but then I usually just quietly swipe my bank card, accept that these guys think they rule the game world and walk out of the store. Maybe – just maybe – if we want to change the game world to be a little conscious of the fact that girls do play games, they should hire a few girls in the know =)

Skipping Out

After reading the first few pages of Gibson’s Virtual Light, I am sad to say that I have to abandon the book for now. Reading (fiction) is a finicky ordeal for me. I have many books sitting on my shelves that looked interesting, but after reading the first chapter, I wasn’t pulled in enough to keep turning the pages. Interestingly, they always get read – at some other point in time, usually years after its initial purchase. Another headspace, another chance.

So while out meandering about town today, I found Coupland‘s Eleanor Rigby on the sale table of my favorite book store. I know I like his writing style, and know that I am in the headspace for his fiction. I will keep Gibson’s book beside my bed and drag it around with me over the next few days/weeks and hopefully I will get into his headspace.

Research Idea/More Ramblings

Just a quick note … I was thinking, perhaps it would be interesting to write a book of play(er) biographies – using the networked identity framework that I etched out in my MA Thesis. The whole point of my thesis was to introduce a framework – a tool – for researchers to use when thinking about identity in goal oriented virtual worlds (with the hope of expanding it out towards digital social spaces). In a way, it would be fun to write an anthology of sorts made up of biographies – to see if my theory works beyond myself and those I’ve (briefly) interviewed.

Grrr Fiction, Onto the Next Book

I remember one of the reasons why I stopped reading fiction – besides having my time almost completely consumed by school work and theory. As I finished James Flint’s Habitus last night, I was left with this puzzled, nagging, unfinished feeling. I read through almost 600 pages of rich descriptions and complex ideas only to (SPOILER ALERT) have everyone die in the last 3 pages and the looming theory/point of the book wrapped up in a few short paragraphs.

I used to love Margaret Atwood – I couldn’t read her books and stories fast enough. Until one day it dawned on me that she never really ever gave the reader closure. Indeed, some would say that this is what makes her great – always leaves the ending shrouded in ambiguity – up to the reader to think about it… perhaps never really coming to a firm conclusion … and that is when I stopped reading her books. It frustrated me to have to put the book down because there were no more pages to read.

Continuing my fiction marathon, I am almost embarrassed to share the title of my next selection. But not THAT embarrassed. Gibson‘s Virtual Light. I have only read two Gibson novels – All Tomorrow’s Parties (my introduction to Gibson’s writing) and Idoru. Since my academic research and personal interests surround ideas of identity, being and cyberspace, one would think I would have read all of his books by now!