media experiences
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22205339/?GT1=10645
does it seem like the dictionary is trying to be cooler or something?
media experiences
i found this article on msn.ca today. it reminded me a lot of those bulky virtual reality head sets from ages ago.
what i found curious is that there was no discussion on the physical impact. aren’t you supposed to sit a few feet away from the tv screen? i’d think it would be fairly straining on the old eyeballs…
media experiences
this site is pretty cool. they take videos of people’s actions and turn them into digitally animated images. the demo is neat, and i was really impressed by the way the mouth moved. one thing i noticed though, no forehead wrinkles! and that made a huge difference.
it’s funny how technology doesn’t seem to be capable of capturing every little detail that gets communication across that much better in real life.
media experiences
first off, this is an article i just found on music file sharers and how they seem to be more likely to purchase more cds than non-sharers.
i don’t really trust everything i find on the msnbc websites, but i thought it was pretty interesting nonetheless.
second, the other day i was having breakfast at a coffee shop and was flicking through the province (another source i don’t really trust), and started looking at the ads and their placements. last year and the year before i took the history of journalism and the public relations media studies classes, and a lot of what we talked about had to do with the advertisers in newspapers. being a publishing student as well, i have a fairly decent understanding on the relationships between advertisers and publishers. what i found really interesting was how in this paper it didn’t seem like anyone had taken a look at where the ads were. on one page there was an article about a flooding in mexico or california or somewhere (sorry, memory of a goldfish). anyways, directly under the article, that included a picture of people walking through the streets, holding their belongings over there heads, was a caption talking about people losing their homes. and directly under that caption was an ad for an interior design school. and directly next to that, was an ad for the (insert store here) home furnishing sale. i felt a little embarassed. seriously, how rude is that?
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frustrating website
http://beinart.org/artists/mark-ryden/?GID=649
this website has so much cool art on it. but the layout is so frustrating. i can’t figure out how to view the gallery in full because when you click on the picture to move it, it fades. and then when you click on it again to set it, you still can’t see the whole thing. didn’t anyone check this out before they published the page?
media experiences
so over the past couple of days i discovered a tv show called ‘dexter’ (http://www.sho.com/site/dexter/home.do) that i’ve really been enjoying. so far i’ve only downloaded the pilot episode and the one after that. last night i decided to burn a vcd of the pilot so my husband could watch it on the tv (we don’t have a dvd burner on this computer). so i burnt it, and when i put it in the dvd player to play, the image was upside down. and mirrored. and the only way it would start (usually you can just hit the play button and it starts right away) was to hit the rewind button.
has anyone ever experienced this? doug, do you have any idea why it would burn like that? i didn’t think it was even possible.
movie experience
on saturday i watched the movie Perfume.
besides having absolutely beautiful cinematography, and a wickedly warped story, i was really really impressed with the way it was presented.
in the beginning of the movie there is a narrator that explains the situation and circumstance of the main character. i didn’t notice exactly when, but at some point in time the action picks up and the narrator disappears. but then, near the end of the movie, he coems back in. what i really liked about that was how it gave such a fairy-tale feel to it.
anyways, twisted but beautiful. i recommend it.
media experiences
on the 19th tickets for a show in victoria went on sale through the save-on-foods memorial centre site. it’s tool, which is a pretty big show, so they usually sell through ticketmaster. i was delighted not to have to deal with that devil (although the memorial centre still tacks a 10 dollar surcharge on), and eagerly waited until noon to buy my tickets.
i hit refresh right as it hit noon, and the page instantly went blank. it took an hour before it stopped giving me the page that said it had timed out and was now a bad gateway. luckily i had a friend online who managed to get the seats for me. at this point i’m sitting across the stadium at the furthest seat possible. we figured out that what happened was the tickets went on sale for the victoria and kelowna show at the same time, on a server that obviously wasn’t ready to deal with some 30,000 fans all desperately trying to get the best tickets possible. needless to say, it was a frustrating afternoon.
what made it really frustrating was the fact that if there had been some sort of a store that was selling the tickets, i happily would have camped out for hours before to get my seats. not an option these days, it seems.
and now my internet speed has dropped dramatically, making it really difficult to navigate the web without constantly cussing at how slowly the pages are ‘turning’. i’ve noticed that when i have a hard time with things like this, i tend to ignore the computer all together. a technician is coming to check our connection on friday. hopefully that will help.
they’re called books
on wednesday i bought a copy of stephen colbert’s i am america (and so can you!). i’ve been a fan of colbert since he was reporting on the daily show, and i was tickled pink when his show picked up steam and became the giant force that it is today.
this book, besides being stupid funny, is written in a really interesting way (warning. i am a creative writing major in the publishing field, so no one may find this interesting but me). he uses footnotes and margin notes, but not to expand on ideas or to add additional suggested readings. he actually uses them to add to his point. it’s like if he was speaking to you, the margin or footnote would be where he leans forward and points his finger to emphasize. there’s also two pages of stickers in it.
i was driving around yesterday and suddenly had a realization. last year in the media theory class i took, we discussed the role of the ‘trickster’ in society nowdays. (here is the article marshall soules wrote about it which sort of explains the idea http://www.media-studies.ca/articles/trickster.htm) and i was thinking about colbert’s speech to the white house, as well as his announcement for his bid for presidency (which i’m pretty sure is just a publicity ploy for the new book) when suddenly i realized colbert IS a trickster.
it was a great moment.
media experiences
today i went to the library at the school to check some books out. when i got to the counter, i noticed that the self check-out machine was gone. i’ve used that thing consistently since they brought it in, and i was surprised to find myself a little bit panicky about having to talk to the librarian at the counter. it wasn’t a big deal, she was very nice and we had a laugh over the machine taking itself out. but it got me thinking about how much technology has affected my real-life interactions. has anyone else noticed this about themselves?
anyways, i found this article that’s sort of about the same thing.
http://www.cracked.com/article_15231_7-reasons-21st-century-making-you-miserable.html
