begin rant

It is almost hard to believe that this is a trailer for a videogame, and not just the next big special-effects laden summer action-blockbuster film. The once bright lines between videogame, interactive entertainment, and film are rapidly fading.

You can say many things about Microsoft, but you cannot say that they do not take their games division seriously. They are aware, just as Sony and Apple (who as a latecomer to the party has only recently developed an appreciation for such) have become aware of how important to long-term business development establishing a baseline infrastructure of consumer "lifestyle" electronics in a home can be.

You may buy the computer for "business" purposes, but if the "kids" can play games on it, and you can also use it for communication, then it replaces several other subsidiary devices that might be constructed by a competitor. If your basic hardware integrates well or complements other devices by expanding functionality, then one purchase can provide for a whole string of downstream purchases. The game or business machine may also be able to play BluRay discs, which implies that you would need a surround-sound system - and the licenses (remember, kids: you don't buy products anymore, just the license to use them until a corporation executes its "at-will" termination clause of the licensing agreement that you contractually bound yourself to the second you opened the package) to play particular films on those machines. Perhaps you would then like to take your whole music or video library on the road with you? Another purchase - and so on.

An excellent business strategy, and one which has contributed to and capitalized upon the accelerating erosion between various forms of entertainment - and allowed certain media traditionally appreciated "only by children" to mature with those persons raised upon it. A generation of consumers, gradually becoming more sophisticated and complex in the way they consume media - and producing more complex and sophisticated media as they mature. Those lines will have been obliterated when interactive media finally becomes as commercially viable with as diverse a series of topics and themes as film eventually achieved.

There is considerable evidence suggesting that it is already well underway.

Posted by Derksen at 1:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With a new year, new deadlines. My life for the next four months, summarized (all apologies to Bungie):

• Deadline for degree application
  January 30, 2009
  Begin processing the paperwork on ISIS.
  Status: Complete!
• Submit thesis to committee
  scheduled for February 10, 2009
  Submit thesis to committee in whole.
  Status: three quarters written, pending first approval and edits.
• Defense
  scheduled for March 5, 2009
  Sit down and be electrocuted by committee for five hours.
  Status: rebuild graphs and display files, practice discussion of data and results.
• Entomology department deadline
  scheduled for March 16, 2009
  Thesis first submission (defended, signed, formatted, on paper) to Department for review.
• Thesis first submission
  scheduled for March 30, 2009
  Thesis first submission (defended, signed, formatted, on paper) to Editorial (160 Grinter) for review.
• Final exam form deadline
  scheduled for April 20, 2009
  
  • Final exam form deadline (Editorial, 160 Grinter) for dissertation or thesis degree award.
  • Final submission of thesis or dissertation.
  • Deadline for “Final Clearance” status in the Editorial Document Management (EDM) system, to qualify for degree award this term.

Posted by Derksen at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night was also the NCAA college championship between UF and OU under the politically fraught and controversial bowl system. While I am not a fan of the lavish attention that college football receives at the expense of academic programs and other sports, it is interesting to see the madness up close and personal.

Since the championship game was being held in Miami, and I receive no other benefits for attending the University of Florida so far from Gainesville, I sort of felt obligated to attend. Of course, getting tickets was near impossible. As a student of the University of Florida, I can enter a lottery to win permission to buy tickets to the game. Had I won one of these tickets, I could have paid $175, and would have had to pick them up at the ticket office in Gainesville - after presenting two forms of picture ID and a valid credit card. I later learned that OU students paid only $110 for their tickets. These were tickets discounted for students in the nosebleed seats. I'd hate to think how much seats in the front or middle tier might have been worth.

Still, lacking for entertainment in Homestead, I figured it was worthwhile to attempt to crash the game, or to go tailgating in the parking lot. Parking was supposed to have cost my small party an additional forty dollars, but we were fortunate to arrive a little late to the opening ceremonies. I say fortunate because the person responsible for collecting money for parking had run off to watch the game, and his staff told us to just park and to enjoy the game.

While we never got inside the stadium, there were more big screen televisions in the parking lot than there usually are at a sports bar. There was considerable food about as well. While we did not so engage ourselves, had we wanted to, we probably could have stepped into one of many drunken lines and taken some barbecue and booze from someone watching the game. We ended up circling the stadium most of the night, just watching the people watch the game - until we found an ideal spot outside of the VIP lounge where there were three giant screen televisions.

I was not entirely surprised to find that local fans were not as enthusiastic as Texas football fans, but few people are. You can usually hear a Aggie or Longhorn game long before you see it. Still, whatever their level of enthusiasm, these were still southern football fans. Some folks were friendly, and enjoyed the game. Others were more bellicose. We watched a drunken skinhead pick a fight in front of four police officers. We watched a man in MSU green (and not much else) bicycle by. Our celebrity sightings outside the VIP lounge included the Miami chief of police, former President Bill Clinton's heavily armed security detail, and the wrestler Mankind. We saw a lot more people in Oklahoma red than I normally expect to see in Miami on any given Wednesday. I got to try and explain the "Sooner" nickname to South Americans.

After a tense first half, Florida won it in the third quarter.

Then we all went back to our trailers.

Posted by Derksen at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For what little it is worth, I am much better with a sword.

Posted by Derksen at 8:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, call me a geek because I am, but I have a date with my expensive electronics.

Halo and the good folks of team FTG kept me sane on Monday nights for nearly a year and a half. It was a chance to kick back, relax, and revel in carefully orchestrated carnage with full surround-sound and a few carefully selected friends. It was glorious fun, and I have missed them and their banter and companionship ever since I got too busy to play a lot of videogames, and then fell behind a firewall prohibiting such access. Someday I'll live in the real world again, and someday we'll fight the good fight together again.

I hope to be fully prepared for that day.

Posted by Derksen at 4:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay -

So maybe it isn't the kind of accomplishment I would really like to be crowing about, but by Nyarlathotep and Levi's jeans, I have finally beaten every last level of the original "Halo" on Legendary, including that gawdawful infernal hangar-bay just inside the Truth and Reconciliation. I do not suppose it makes me some sort of gaming god, but through persistence and the slick resurrection of my thumb, I have vanquished and conquered - thereby earning my geek spurs.

I may now purchase the no-longer available "Legendary" t-shirt from bungie with its crossed swords and skull in good faith, and you may refer to me as "Sir" Andrew.

Heh.

I'm going running now so I can do the happy dance on the move.

Posted by Derksen at 8:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)