The Purpose of Blogging
Something that is relatively disputed among those who have been blogging since the proverbial beginning, but aside from the “real” purpose, I have been thinking about my purpose, and the ‘general’ purpose. Admittedly, my two final projects (for my cinema, vid game class AND my contemporary sociological theory class) involve the use or dissection of blogs. One as a tool and another as a … a what?

I have always stated that my personal reason for blogging was simply to get things out of my head, toss them around and have the ideas become somewhat of a seperate entity in and of themselves (not all posts fall under this category but still…). I have always maintained that I blog for myself, not for an (imagined) audience. So why not just write a journal offline? I don’t really have an answer for that… often the comeback is along the lines of ‘sharing my ideas with the world, collaboration, feedback’ etc etc. But judging by the number of comments over the history of this blog, I cannot truly say that this space gives me much more than a public venting opportunity. And besides – if I really do blog ‘for myself’, I wouldn’t care about the comments (or lack thereof).

So I am stuck with the question of why do I, Kelly – mother of two, MA student, friend and partner – feel the need to blog on a regular basis? Is it some inate desire to share my thoughts with the world even though I know that I could simply call the three people who actually read this space and have a conversation? And if it is a ‘cleansing’ of the (sometimes) intellectual mind, what drives me to such a potentially public space? I have a few theories but none of them answer ALL of the questions; and I am not comfortable having random, disjointed answers on this one..

Learning to Play
(cross listed over at gamecode.ca, with some editing here)

I am heading into my final project for my CIN6011, exploring the ways that people learn to play (in reference to my own play sessions written about here over the last few months) and how people ‘learn’ or understand a film. I have been working with overlapping theories of identification and will continue to do so, but I am trying to look at the broader scope of methods.

There is ample information out there about learning in games, games as educational tools and whatnot (Gee, 2003; Squire, 2002, Steinkuehler, etc.). But I have recently been interested in how we learn to play games. From the seasoned gamer’s tactic of jumping right in and intuitively learning the interface, controls and whatever else is necessary in order to play – to the use of manuals, FAQ’s and walkthroughs. Besides the obvious, I have been trying to think of other tactics of learning to play in games. A recent presentation in one of my classes had me thinking about layered learning, where repetition is the method. Although it has been agreed that repetition in games can become tedious and ruin levels of immersion, it is also a necessary (evil?) for the player to understand the game in terms of in world physics, maps and strategies. Any thoughts or ideas (and references) would be greatly appreciated.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Went to see them tonight – not a bad show, but for anyone who has heard this guy’s voice – imagine it gets much worse amplified with a bad sound man controlling the mic. Their opening band – The Brunettes – rocked!!

My daughters go to a school that focus (among other arts) on music. My oldest daughter plays the clarinette (from grade 4 until graduation from High School) and my youngest daughter has just been assigned the trumpet. [In grade four, every child has to play the violin, clarinette, trumpet and flute – based on their final performance scores, they are assigned an instrument]

The Brunettes were great because they have the most ecclectic line-up of instruments. Opening song has ALOT of clarinette in it .. and a trumpet… and the xylophone (the favored instrument of my girls’ school for grades 1 & 2). I am excited to buy their cd so that my girls can see that everything from the triangle and blocks to trumpet, clarinet and electric guitar is cool and can make funky music.

Clap your hands say yeah – well, performance wise were pretty mellow. When the singer wasn’t singing, he had his back to the crowd playing guitar. Guess that’s one of the reasons the tickets were $16 and not $50… nonetheless, was a cool show and was nice to get out and see some live tuneage again.

p.s. went to the brunettes website, they have all their tunes available for direct listening. but i must say, they rock way harder then their studio stuff.

Board (Bored?) Participation
As I sit here and procrastinate in what should be one of my busiest times of year, I find myself wandering the internet, trolling boards and scrolling through random blogs. After visiting all the usual suspects on my daily stroll through cyberspace. Found myself reading a babyblog today!! (and not just the first three words). But I know when I have been spending too much time perusing the textual goods when I get the urge to post replies. And even though I have logged in and read the boards for what seems like forever, I always get nervous when I type in my reply. Reading and re-reading it to make sure I don’t sound obnoxious – always feeling like poking my head in someone else’s changing room.

Which kind of (but not really) brings me to something my daughter brought up to me today – a myspace site of a teenage boy, who writes alternative poetry; kind of awkward, kind of off the wall, but a space my daughter enjoys reading. But she was telling me that the replies his space gets are usually extremely nasty flames, berating him as a person etc. and so forth. What I don’t understand is why don’t people just ignore his site? If they think its such a crappy site, why not just click on? It bothers me alot – it bothers her alot – since my daughter often finds solace in online space and communication and sees it that way for this particular guy we can only imagine how it makes him feel (she feels very badly for him).

Internet Science Journal
Looks like a good place to submit my final paper for my methods class =)
Here is their mission statement:

The International Journal of Internet Science (IJIS) is a forum for publication of research in the social and behavioral sciences. It welcomes articles on empirical findings, methodology, and theory in the field of Internet Science. Especially welcome is theory-guided empirical research. Some topics of interest for the readership of IJIS areMethodological issues in Internet surveysMethodological issues in Internet-based experimentsThe Internet and social networks (online and/or offline)Problems of cooperation and trust in online interactionOnline groups, online communities, and virtual teamsSocial and psychological impact of the InternetThe digital divideThe Internet and organizationsThe Internet, science, and academic communicationKnowledge exchange and knowledge management in online settingsE-Learning and i-learningE-Health and i-healthE-Government, e-Voting, and e-DemocracyComputer-mediated communicationSampling approaches with the help of the Internet

Unless…
I write my final paper as a hypertext… not sure if that would fit in the theme of cinema, video games and interactive fiction… as it would be interactive theory. Could be easier than implementing a web design (because I have to think about layout and content, whereas with the hypertext version, layout is more pre-determined).

Multi-Media Projects
As the days tick by, I have been thinking about my final project for the Cinema, video games and interactive fiction course I am taking. I already have my topic as I have posted quite some time ago, but now, I am looking at how I will present it. Being a ‘sociologist’, I usually write traditional, theory based papers.

Given that I have a large contemporary theory paper to write (on blogging as confession a la Foucault) and a lenghty methodology paper (exploring the multitude of methods currently being used in Game Studies), I am eager to step outside of the box.

So, in the spirit of multi-media, I have come up with a great (I hope) idea for presenting my final work. The goal of the assignment is to explore how I have learned to play FFX-2, and how I ‘learn’ or understand my film (NBC). I am thinking of handing in a cd-rom with a offline ‘website’ design with links to different ‘chapters’ of my assignment. I am thinking big right now, with film clips of play, self and film; blog entries and chat discussions. Tie this all together with voice over and text and I might have a hit on my hands …

Now to execute it – ideas are always the easy part!

Second Person
The second installement of an anthology that started with First Person, Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media looks like some very interesting reads from ‘game designers, writers, artists and game studies scholars.

Links
I have been torn about adding to my links section lately. In discussing the content of the gamecode blog, we tried to determine how much is enough and how many is too much. The goal is to point other people to spaces that I find interesting or relative to the things I talk about here (when I actually post). But as my time online expands, so has my links section. So when do i stop? There is a point where there can simply be too much and therefore don’t get looked at at all. (Terra Nova and grandtextauto’s links section are good case in points – and yes, I will let you go to my link/blog section to get to them ;o) ).

Anyways, all this to say that I have recently made some additions, so check it out.

International Academic Censorship
And the good ole US of A. I was perplexed to read this over at jill/txt. I guess this type of censorship is in the name of ‘homeland security’? Although the author states that the content of the research is not political but on the topic of geography etc. this makes me think of a question my contemporary theory professor raised at the beginning of the semester – are all actions political? Is simply being a citizen of one country or another a political issue? And what does this mean in the grander scheme of the international intellectual community? I am saddened that knowledge is being filtered by location of birth. (Although very sadly, not surprised)