Dys/Utopia in Gaming

I need to compile a list of games (pc, ps2, xbox, etc.) that take place in or create a vision of the future.

So far my list isn't very long:

- Doom (1, 2 and 3)
- Half-life (1 and 2)
- Deus Ex

I can't really say which of the games I'm seeing on google are good games either.

Ideally the games should be able to be found/purchased/played without any copywrite issues.

I was shocked that my professor left games off the list of examples of where we see artists and scholars visioning the future. Apparently he's not much 'into technology'. He hadn't even considered it. I'm hoping to prepare a list and include a description of whether utopia or dystopia is foreshadowed in the game. I figure it's a great way to engage the students next fall. I can just imagine a session where we sit around playing games. :) What a way to earn a degree.

My New Keyboard

Wow. That about sums it up. The keys bounce back up.

It's funny how how when you're used to using shoddy, ineffective equipment another piece of shoddy, ineffective equipment doesn't isn't even noticeable. I should definitely be able to get an A with this keyboard. I'll certainly be able to write my papers a lot faster. It's bizarre. I never would have guessed that it could make a difference.

The wrist wrest is cool too. No finger cramps.

Of course now I'm noticing what a crummy chair I have (which I got off the side of the road at end of semester one year. Garbage picking is great when the students leave to go home to mom and dad). or maybe it's my desk. Someone send me an ergonomic specialist please. I know my set up is less than ideal. I really should figure something out to improve it. Microsoft's keyboard came with some info on 'Healthy Computing' and they emphasize the importance of setting up comfortably. After working on the project due on Monday until 2 a.m. last night my back was killing me. I heard Rob's back is aching down in California from carrying around his laptop at GDC..... I'm not sure how much sympathy I'm really feel in that department. ;)

There is a problem with using the cordless phone in here now though. I doesn't seem to be compatible with the RF keyboard and mouse. Maybe I can fiddle with the channels or something - it would be nice to have a phone in here for when my dad calls for help with his computer.

Purchase

I went out this morning to get a birthday gift for a party X is going to tonight. I remember the good ol' homeschool days when she and I could pick out or even *make* gifts together for birthdays and other occasions. Now she's at school and I'm picking up the obligatory gift because the invitation came two days before the party. Pretty frustrating.

However, since I was out anyway and right across the street from Future shop I thought I'd stop in and see what they had. Ever since Rob pointed out what a crummy keyboard I have (thanks Rob) I've been noticing the cramps in my fingers and how other people's keys bounce back up after they're struck. Hmmm. Funny I never noticed that before.

I've been researching online and seeing what's out there and how much and decided that with all the papers I have left to write for school and since X is now learning to type, I can justify upgrading.

I had hoped to avoid a ms product but it turns out Future Shop had the ms wireless desktop on sale 1/3 off. It's got the curved keyboard and includes a wireless optical mouse. No, I haven't set it up yet - I will do that momentarily. I'm hoping to learn to use the fancy features it has - apparently (according to the salespitch on the box) they'll save me lots of time and will take only moments to configure. I'm not sure about all this wireless stuff - I really should learn more about the whole rf and health link... yeah right. As soon as I have time.

Ouch

After bringing A to the bustop this morning I bashed my leg - specifically my right knee - on the car door. Wow. Did it ever hurt.

I still went to practice ballet because that exam is creeping up very quickly. Less than 2 weeks now.

Five hours later it's quite swollen, red, and a bruise is developing. And I can feel the pain up to my hip and down to my ankle.

I don't even want to think about not being able to do the exam. It's already paid for and they don't give refunds. And Florence wants me to take it with Betty. And I'm ready. And it's only half an hour away. If I wait until June I have to go over the border to Wixom, far far away.

I need some purring please.

Frustration

Thinking last night about the whole "I need to be done school" thing has helped me get some perspective. Part of me says I won't work this hard forever. Who knows though, maybe I will. Am I the sort of person who can't give 75%? Do I really need to work work work all the time? I am working myself silly trying to get top marks without letting go of any of my other projects (ballet, art, friendships more or less). Most of these other things are seriously suffering but I'm holding on to them nonetheless. If I just take my time, use the full four years, I can take partial course loads everytime rather than full or even the overloads I was considering, I can set up whatever business I'm going to do post-graduation...I can live on the scholarships and grants and stretch that out as long as possible. In another two years the oldest will be 12, the youngest 6...I'm not sure why I'm in such a rush anyway.

What's pushed this today was realizing that two of the courses I wanted to take this summer (Advanced web design and Women and Friendship) not only conflict with each other but conflict with E's (and soon to be A's) swimming lessons. /sigh/ This leaves me with Cyberethics and Gender and Moral Choice. Maybe I can pick up that other ws course from York...dunno. So instead of getting five courses for the summer I'm having a hard time getting three. Is it really worth all this stress? There's a strong chance that the MLIT won't take me without the honours degree anyway (not that I see a way around the logistics of that) so I should just try and sit back and relax and enjoy the ride while I can.

I need to keep telling myself there's no rush. And if there is a rush I need to figure out why.

meet up turned philosophical

I'm thinking of starting a windsor photography meetup group. I really should. I have time every other weekend I guess - I want to learn more...

The more I get out and take pictures the sooner I will feel confident with the new camera. Look at that - I can't even say "my" camera. I went back and typed over it.

It's snowing again and I just discovered this excel sheet I agreed to edit is nothing more than an exotic table. There is nothing excel about it. drat. It looks like I may be starting the Entire Project over from zero.

I want spring.

I also want to be done school and doing something productive with my life.

I know that this time is precious and will never come again - kind of like the newborn period in a lot of ways. At this moment in time I am relatively financially secure (debt aside): I know I can buy groceries next week if i need them, I know I can have heat and hot water (and I need them with all this snow everywhere). I have the luxury of organizing my schedule around classes and the needs of my children/jobs with relative flexibility. I can pursue different interests which may or may not lead to future cash flow - I am, in a manner of speaking, well-padded at the moment.

I really need to focus myself in the upcoming months and try and figure out what and where it is I want to be when this is all done. With the true possibility of being done school looming not that far off in the future I feel like I should have a better sense of how I will support my family when the scholarships run out.

I like school, but feel like I'm biding time, waiting to grow up. I know the outside world is not a happy rosy place, but I'm really not a kid anymore. I should be doing what grownups do, shouldn't I?

getting ready for gdc

No one thinks about all the behind the scenes work that goes into preparing for a trip like this. I spent a big part of yesterday designing and printing business cards for Rob and Jeff to give out while they schmooze around. Let me summarize by saying I am going to get a recycle bag in here *today* where scrap paper/old drafts will go immediately upon exiting the printer/when they're no longer the most current version of a document. Jeff's beautiful cards were forgotten under a big stack of proofs.

Today I tried to create and send Rob a file that they can take to California and print out at Kinko's there in the self-serve printing department. It would have been a lot easier if we'd known earlier that they could open a pdf there. Instead of just quickly saving my work as pdf, most of my time was spent trying to use the frustrating Avery template in msWord and copy/recreate the card from scratch. I've discovered it's so much easier to just set up the document to match the blank cards and then print from Adobe Illustrator without messing with trying to paste into a template. It took me awhile to figure out you cannot get rid of the white border in the Avery template. I wish they mentioned that somewhere (well maybe they do tell you that in the instructions, but I doubt it).

So Rob leaves in an hour from Detroit and he's got two pdf's and a doc to take to warm and sunny California. I sure hope they give some of these out...

And I've got 30 cards for Jeff next time I see him.

FRG

My first submission to a university conference was accepted today. :) At some point during the first week of May 2005 I will be doing an oral presentation on creating a safe place for women to share and learn from their experiences followed by an interactive presentation of the board game I developed last year. I'm so excited. Now I have to prepare, write and practice the paper as well as get it ready for publishing in the conference guide and get my game pieces dusted off and tidied. I might ask one of my professors to help me with the paper. I really want to do a good job. The presenters are told to assume no prior knowledge in the audience but I don't know how accurate that really is. I guess I need to find out.

I am not a girl

I am not a girl. I am a fully grown human female. I hate that even at the WomYYYYYn's centre on campus the coordinator calls all the women 'Girls'. I understand the issue with the word woMen and I realize that some people prefer to be called 'girl' because the etymology of the word is not based on a woman's relationship to a man...but this is not at the root of the coordinator's use of the word 'girl'. I asked her.

Last week I called the nurse practitioner to update him about my kid's appointment with the specialist. He told me he'd get 'one of the girls' to pull his chart and update it. There are no young females working in the office. He was referring to the nurses that do the chart work. I really don't think he'd want me calling him a boy - or that I'm going to take my son and get one of the boys to do his surgery. So he didn't mean any offense but does that make it okay? Those women worked hard for their degrees - maybe didn't go to school as long as he did, but still, they are adults. Calling them girls when there are alternative choices - he could have said 'one of the staff' of 'one of the nurses' or 'someone' or just said 'his chart will be updated'.

Post-structural theory and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis both stress how language shapes our reality. Giving someone a title of respect garners them different treatment than referring to them as something general or derogatory. It's one thing to try and bridge the medical professional/client gap - that's part of the whole reason behind using a nurse practitioner for health care but I don't think it is necessary to call adult women 'girls' in order to take down that wall. If I introduce you to my friend the engineer you will likely speak to him or her differently than if I introduce you to my friend the janitor. My two friends have made different career choices. They both say that as soon as they say what job they have their status changes. The engineer says that respect goes up and the janitor says respect goes down. Of course this is just anecdotal evidence and based on their own perceptions but interesting none the less.

The point is, please don't call me a girl.

tough work

It's been tough but it's 1:30 and I've managed to find enough to do to keep me from writing my paper. :) I started with a little DDR Extreme mission mode and then I remembered a little project for my mentorship class that has to be done for Monday so I thought I'd work on it for a bit, then it was time for lunch. I perused some info on ballroom and latin dancing classes yet again, thinking how nice it would be to have time to dance again (even if they are beginner classes. again.) I think I've just about got Roger and Georgi talked in to signing up as well. She'll be 9 months pregnant by the time the session finishes. I've never seen a pregnant tango before (I feel a photoshop coming on). They've always wanted to take the lessons so this would be a perfect time imo. Rob has only said that we can "talk about it more later." A little slippery I'd say. I've got my fingers crossed. If he says no maybe I'll call on Yolanda. Hear that Rob? You're my first pick. :)

procrastinating

Rather than working on my photography business (which is just too mighty intimidating) I've taken to designing business cards. I did a couple for myself for the photography thing, I made one for a friend's pc repair business and now I've done one for my dear ol' dad. He's so cute: he got his first computer just before xmas and left it all in the boxes for a month while he built a desk (oak, fancy trim, locking secret compartment). He wanted a card so that he can give people his email address without having to write it down. I guess at 61 he knows how hard it is to remember things. I hope he likes it.

If I don't find another little project to do I'm going to have to write my philosophy paper. At least marking all those horrible papers is good validation: I can write in sentences! I finished the first year papers last night. Two students got 3/15 and the top mark was 13.75/15. Her paper was such a treat: full sentences, decent style, three strong arguments supporting a real thesis, explained and supported by the readings. Aaaaaah. Such a treat.

eXtreme vacation

Enough with the marking papers. They're all drivel. :-/

I decided to treat myself to a nice cardio workout of DDR Extreme. Masquerading as a gift for the kiddies last xmas the game is really mine all mine. The truth is, it was love at first sight for me and ddr last May at E3.

Today I discovered "mission mode" is unlocked! In single player mode there is a block of squares five by five with 25 missions to complete, but only a few can be unlocked at a time. After you successfully complete a mission the block is replaced by a piece of a puzzle. When they're all filled in it looks like it will be a picture of (drumroll....) people dancing! The more you missions you complete, the more choices you get of which one to unlock next. If you fail too many times, you lose choices. I managed to do about 20 of them (I really needed a treat).

The only clue you get before you unlock the mission is the difficulty level, starting at Light and going up to Heavy. Some of the missions are pretty basic: clear the song before your dance guage runs out, clear with a certain number of perfects, get 20 perfects in a row, don't get 3 boos or almosts or goods in a row. Some of them are a little trickier. I wasn't able to figure out how to not step on 2 arrows simultaneously but still maintain enough life in the dance gauge to keep the game going. The one where the arrows started floating *down* the screen instead of up was wild! And I really got a kick out of the mission where the arrows disappeared half way up. On most of these you only play for a clip of the song rather than the whole thing. Once you've completed the mission, the game continues. Another bonus is that if you fail it appears that you can keep trying for an unlimited number of times. Lucky for me. ;)

I still think ddrExtreme is a hoot. It definitely beats marking those dreadful assignments. I want to say I had some fun on my spring break. I guess now I can.

How I spent spring break 2005

Being a TA is tough work. I have to be available to answer questions from the students at all hours of day and night (especially the day before a paper is due). I have to read their books on top of my own. But the part I love the best is marking their assignments. Blech. I'm halfway through my pile of Assignment #1 and they are terrible. They were given a choice of two thesis statements, no outside research required, three pages max, 1 " margins, no style required.... couldn't be easier, I'd say. How could they blow it?

Well, for starters they are first year students. Second semester, but still first year. Some of them remember to include the thesis in their intro, some don't bother with the intro at all. One had a really nice intro but placed it at the end of her paper. Arrrrgh. Why don't they ask me before they hand it in? It's part of my job! I hate failing them....but how hard should I have to dig to find them some marks?

Some of them get me excited that their's might be the first one that does what it's supposed to do. I get a nice tidy introduction with some writing style, maybe some nice vocabulary, no spelling or grammar errors. And then instead of defending their thesis, they write a paper about colonialism/imperialism/a biography of bell hooks/a list of what they had for dinner and I'm struggling again to find them some marks.

sigh. At least I'm halfway. and no outright plagiarism yet.