Sidney Blaylock Jr.'s Blog, page 56
August 14, 2017
Nostalgia Time: In Search of the Most Amazing Thing & Snooper Troops
Screenshot: Man jet packing to B-Liner Balloon Ship. Image Source: Myabandonware.com
So, I won’t bore you but my Digital Rhetoric, while discussing the importance of old Commodore 64 code and the like, wasn’t too interested in my ACTUAL working knowledge of the C64 and its “affordances” (fancy, two-bit academic jargon that means advantages) of the software that I had as a child (& what helped shaped me into the person I am today). I’m going to take a moment (probably on Mondays, though they may appear on other days) to just quickly go through some of the quirkiest and/or most relevant software and relate how they might apply to today’s world.
Two games that I remember that were the strangest and most intriguing games that I ever got for the C64 were by the same company–Spinnaker Software. They were called In Search of the Most Amazing Thing (ISotMAT) and Snooper Troops (ST). While I have the manual for ISotMAT, I don’t have the manual for ST–I can’t remember if ST was bundled in or if it was stuck in the ISotMAT box accidentally (things like that did happen in the early days of software), or what, but I remember that they came together, but that we (my uncle and I) had to figure out how to play ST whereas we had the manual for ISotMAT.
ISotMAT was sort of a “sci-fi” game in a world underneath/beneath the “real world.” Fraggle Rock was a new and different thing at the time and it had that same “Fraggle Rock” feel. I remember that it took a while to figure out how to play ISotMAT, but once you understood it, you could have a decent amount of fun with it. The problem with the game is that it was SLOW. It took forever for the game to “draw” critical systems onto the screen. Now perhaps this was a limitation of the C64, but I recall a segment where you needed to drill. The computer had to draw the drill circling down pixel by pixel and then it drilled and you received whatever and then the computer had to retract the drill laboriously again pixel by pixel. One drilling session could take 5-7 minutes. I still enjoyed playing the game however. So much so, that when I couldn’t figure out a way to get to the ending of the game via the game itself, I actually found a way to “List” (view) the game’s code (it was written in BASIC) and I skimmed the code until I found the ending (all on my own, at the age of 9-11 years old, maybe 12, but that’s pushing it, if I remember). That’s what I wanted to share with the class as it recalled an example in James Paul Gee’s book What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy of a kid who wanted to know more about World of Warcraft, so went to online forums, found a binary code reader, and began to read and manipulate WoW’s code. Gee was suitably impressed by the young man’s “metacognition” and learning strategies. My classmates, on the other hand, weren’t particularly interested in much that I had to say, so this why I’m sharing this experience here instead.
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Screenshot: Car beside Detective Agency. Image Source: Myabandonware.com
ST was a mystery game and I daresay that I liked it as much, and perhaps a little more than ISotMAT. When done right, I actually like mysteries as a genre, but only in certain instances. I’ll try to remember to do a post on the rise and fall of my love of mysteries in another post, but ST allowed you to be a detective and it was something that my child self really gravitated to. It even allowed you to drive a car from house to house as you checked out clues and again, you had to take into account your speed and braking distance, or you could overshoot your target house. While the game was presented abstractly, the modeling of certain real-world concepts was something that helped child me learn and engage with the world through play in a meaningful way–which is what Gee’s book is all about.
I found two YouTube videos showing ISotMAT and ST. Now, they’re not the correct format (i.e., C64 version) that I played, but even on different systems they still give you an idea of what the games looked like if you’re interested:
In Search of the Most Amazing Thing
Well, that’s it for my trip down memory lane for today–thanks for listening/reading. I appreciate it.
August 12, 2017
Using Books to Escape a Horrid Summer
Tent blowing away in a summer storm. Image Source: Yoga Mobility
Apologies for not posting as the past few days were the perfect end to an absolutely horrid summer for me (and by perfect, I mean utterly devastating for me as a human being and as a person). Rather than coming online to vent my spleen (to use an old outdated expression of anger), I decided just take a couple of “mental health” days and refrain from posting for a couple of days (would that online Trolls would do the same thing and internet trolling would be a thing of the past). I won’t go into details, but just reread my post on Sometimes the Bear Gets You and multiply it by a factor of 50 and then you’ll have some idea on why it was probably a good idea to step away for a couple of days.
Anyway, moving on, my library books happened to be due this week, so I stopped by and saw all of the changes that have occurred in the 4 years since I became a teacher and a PhD student. It really is incredible! One of the librarians, when I told her about my horrid summer, said to just put it out of my mind and to focus on my upcoming tasks, so I decided to take her advice.
To that end, I’ve checked out two books: The Green Rider by Kristen Britain and J.R.R. Tolkien, A Biography by Humphrey Carpenter. Now I’ve checked out these books before but there is a story behind each of them.
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Book Cover: Young Lady on a Horse. Image Source: Goodreads
I tried to read The Green Rider by Kristen Britain before when it was first released, but abandoned it shortly after I started reading. I think it was because she does a lot of POV switching early in the book (I can’t remember if this is her first novel or not–I’ll have to research it), but at the time, I was a beginning writer and the advice to stay in one POV was ringing in my head and it drove me nuts that an author could get her book published while ignoring this “basic” rule (of course, I could be misremembering and this might not be the reason at all–hey, cut me some slack, it’s been a LONG time, but my best recollection is this is the reason why I stopped reading). As both my school’s starting time and my library’s loan period is about the same time (3 weeks) I’m going to (in the short period before school resumes) try to read it again and see if I can stick with it long enough to finish it. I’ll report back on my progress here.
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Book Cover: Tolkien seated beside a tree. Image Source: Amazon
The second book I picked up is a biography on J.R.R. Tolkien that I’ve read before. Last summer, when I started the PhD program we had to pick an author and do an in-depth study on him/her. I wanted to pick Tolkien, but I was talked out of it by well-meaning (but ultimately flawed) advice: i.e., even though he’s deceased, the amount of editions in print and the amount of scholarship would be overwhelming. So I picked Langston Hughes, an author who I’ve done a little bit research on and who seemed to fit the bill for the class (I wanted to do David Eddings as a 2nd choice, but there was almost NO research on him at all, which would have made finding 50 critical articles a near impossibility). However, here’s what I (re)learned from that experience–I have to follow my OWN heart, otherwise it all goes wrong. Langston was manageable, but uninteresting. I struggled to complete the assignments because I wasn’t invested in Langston’s life and works as I had been as an undergraduate. I had moved on as a person/scholar and I didn’t really have the zeal to do a critical study of him. This is the “kiss of death” for a scholar. If you’re going to spend all that time working on a project, you’d better make doggone sure that you’re interested in it. I’d learned this lesson before by taking a graduate Shakespeare class at UTC. The class wasn’t the one I had planned on taking that year, but a friend told me to take it and it (much like this summer) didn’t go nearly as well as I had hoped. I learned then to trust my own judgement and not the judgement of others, a lesson which I forgot, (and had to re-learn) from my disinterest in Langston’s life and works at MTSU. So, in honor of such a crappy summer, I’m going to reread Tolkien’s biography to hopefully remind myself that it is MY opinion that matters in deciding matters about MY life.
August 9, 2017
Dark Tower Redux
You know, I’m almost sorry that I posted that I was conflicted about the failure of the Dark Tower movie to connect with fans. I mean, this very blog takes its name from a line that Jake speaks in the first book (paraphrasing): “Go then, Gunslinger. There are Other Worlds Beside this one). My point being simply that Stephen King DID NOT invent the Dark Tower or the mythos that has grown up around it. His story is but ONE of MANY out there–yes, it is the most popular, but it is NOT the only story that has been told or will be told about the Dark Tower. He doesn’t own the Tower anymore than J.K. Rowling owns “Magic.”
However, some really ugly arguments and memes have sprung up around the failure of the movie and just want to take a moment to address some of the most problematic ones.
SCRIPT
So this is where most of the critics and fans have expressed most of their disappointment. The movie is only approx. 90 minutes long, but tries to infuse 7-8 books worth of material (from my understanding–haven’t seen the movie yet) into this (very) short time-frame. However, the element that really concerns is the fact the movie writers are essentially “work-for-hire” contractors and considered the lowest on the totem pole for the creative endeavor of the movie. This is where the problem lies–a movie is a creative endeavor, true, and you need all parts to work, but the script (the story) is the most important part. Without a solid script, even the best actors and directors are going to struggle. Yet, writers of screenplays get no version of royalties if the movie does really well nor is there input sought (usually) for rewrites as in many cases they are replaced with other writers and movies become written essentially by committee. Another thing that hurts writers is the fact that it is a closed system that privileges only a few. Even in today’s internet connected world, you still have to move to Hollywood if you really want a serious chance at writing a screenplay–how is this even still a requirement in 2017? If there’s an awesome screenwriter in Wisconsin, the internet is MORE than robust enough to allow that writer to write wherever works for them.
IDRIS ELBA AS ROLAND
This one is the most troubling. Yes, King based Roland on the “gunslinger” archetype made popular by actors like Clint Eastwood and Yul Brynner. However, nothing precludes Roland from being portrayed by an actor of another race, even though King’s description may have indicated/favored another race. There is a tendency on the Internet today to label a person, or group just to be able to belittle said person or group. Everyone wants a winner, or wants to be associated with a winner. However, in a capitalistic structure such as the American movie industry there HAVE be winners and losers–there’s no way around it. You can do things to help swing the pendulum in either direction, but there are no guarantees in a creative endeavor. If it doesn’t “win,” then there’s this need to find a scapegoat and the Internet is currently on this kick where a diverse person/group gets the blame irregardless of whether or not its fair (I direct your attention to the 2016 Ghostbusters movie as prime example of this).
SONY
Speaking of Sony, I should probably note that Sony also has taken blame in this from many circles. Sony, as a huge faceless conglomerate, tends to get a lot of blame for things that are beyond their control. We (probably wrongly) think of the director as the most important component of a movie (I would argue it is probably an equal weight between writer, director, and movie talent), but I haven’t seen or heard anyone criticizing the director, but the studio.
We all hope for our favorite properties to “hit it out of the park” (a la The Lord of the Rings), but at the end of the day–is it the studio that failed to deliever on the story you wanted or was it the script? Which of the two is more intricately tied to “story” and “story” formation, ideation, and creation? For me, opening up the system and allowing it to be based on merit (good writers) and not location (living in Hollywood) or more importantly, networking (good a “pitching” a story instead of good at “writing” the story) would be a far more equitable system that might result in a rise in quality in the stories being told, and as a result, increased satisfaction from fans who just want their stories “done right.”
August 8, 2017
Doctor Who: Series 1 Mini-Review
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So, I’m re-watching Doctor Who again from the beginning as I would like to do an academic paper on it in the near future (especially in light of the casting of Jodie Whitaker as the first female Doctor). I finished the first season of the show’s reboot from 2005 with Christopher Eccleston playing the Ninth Doctor and this is a mini-review of the season (full disclosure–I’ve seen this season already, back in 2005, although as I’ve noted before, this was before I understood how British TV worked and so I thought I’d missed episodes when in fact, I hadn’t).
Series 1 Grade: A (Excellent)
Is this season perfect? No, it isn’t, but it re-established Doctor Who in the public consciousness and brought a clever, fun, and sometimes dour Doctor to the screen. I’d only seen 1 or 2 episodes of the Doctor before this (I distinctly remember a story involving K-9), but as I was a child and had little reference for a time-traveling alien who changed his faces, I wasn’t able to become a “Whovian” until this reboot hit the air waves.
Eccleston has a pluckiness that he infused into the Doctor’s personality. Eccleston’s Doctor could be dour and serious as the situation called, but there was an attitude of irrepressible joy (almost puckishness) in the delight that he got from traveling time and space in the TARDIS, captured perfectly by his catchphrase of “Fantastic!” Billie Piper as Rose was also a great companion. It is been note that the audience sees the Doctor and the world the eyes of the companions and Piper’s Rose has both that wide-eyed wonder and plucky demeanor that allowed me to become part of the Doctor’s circle. The stories were varied and (mostly) hit for me, with only the odd episode just out of tune here or there. While there were a few “dark” episodes, they mostly tended toward the lighter side during this first season with a recurring “motif” linking the episodes (I won’t spoil it in case you haven’t seen the show).
In closing, I really liked what they did with Series 1 of the show and watching it again reminded me of why the show managed to grab me as an adult in the way it couldn’t when I was a child. More emphasis on characterization, storytelling, and special effects were able to pull me deeper into the story than ever before.
August 7, 2017
Writing a new Screenplay
The Black List Logo (Find Screenplays. Get Found.) http://blcklst.com Image Source: linkedin
I “accidentally” started a screenplay on Saturday night. I say accidentally because I wasn’t planning on it. However, a scene came to mind that seemed to be both a cool action scene at once as well as a way to visually tell the backstory of the character. I’ve only started the scene, but I wanted to fix the image in my mind on paper before it got away. I wrote several paragraphs and then went back and outlined what happens in that scene. When I get through writing it, I’m hopeful that it will be completely self-contained with no dialogue from either the main character or any other characters. It should be 3-5 minutes (pages) long, but in that time you should know who the protagonist is and why he is doing what he is doing.
This is for a project that I’ve already published a short-story for and this is part of that “working smarter, not harder” paradigm that I’ve been trying for since spring of this year. This is the 2nd script that I’ve attempted–I finished my first script (FREEFALLING–a short script of about 6-8 pages). That one also did not have any dialogue, but it does have a beginning, middle, and end. I was going to put it on a website that features short scripts called The Black List, but balked as you’d have to join the Writer’s Guild of America. Registration is cheap, but I don’t like being forced into things (if you can’t tell from my other blog posts). However, most agents won’t look at anything less than a feature length script, so if I want exposure for FREEFALLING, The Black List is my only real option.
I haven’t decided how long this new script will be. If it turns out to be a feature length script (120 pages), then I’ll send it out to agents, but if it is a shorter script, then I’ll put it on the Black List and see what happens. While it wasn’t what I was intending to write over the weekend (I have both school assignments and a Graphic novel script that I needed to work on), it was what demanded to be written at that moment. I really hope something good comes out of it!
August 5, 2017
The Dark Tower
The Childe (Apprentice Knight) Roland holding up a sword. Book Cover. Image Source: GoodReads.com
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The Man in Black vs The Gunslinger (Stephen King’s The Dark Tower). Movie Poster. Image Source: Wikipedia
A movie version based on Stephen King’s Dark Tower series releases this weekend and the reviews are not favorable. It currently stands (Aug. 4) at 18% on Rotten Tomatoes. I’m actually ambivalent and conflicted about how I feel about this development.
On one hand, I’d like to see this movie be successful because it stars a Person of Color (Idris Elba) in a lead role playing someone other than a “drug dealer”/”gangster”/”any other stereotypical roles” that people of color are generally relegated to in movies. Also, I’ve read quite a few books of this series and I know how the story ends, so even though this series isn’t one I’m invested in, I do have familiarity with the material, so I’d like to see a good adaptation of it just for that reason.
On the other hand, everyone seems to forget that Stephen King didn’t “invent” the “modern” conception of the Dark Tower. That honor goes to Robert Browning in his poem, “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.” And even he wasn’t the first as the title appeared as a line in Shakespeare’s King Lear. And even though we don’t where it originated, we can assume that Shakespeare borrowed it from an even older source. My point is that the Robert Browning poem is old enough to be in the public domain and ANYONE can write stories based on it. Stephen King didn’t invent the Dark Tower, he only popularized it and moved it from the realm of English Literature classrooms out into the general public.
Yet, whenever someone mentions the Dark Tower, immediately the discussion turns to Stephen King’s universe. For me, as a lover of the Dark Tower mythos (remember, I even had a board game called the Dark Tower as a child), this is more than aggravating. It would be as if Disney’s Snow White was the ONLY version of Snow White being talked about, when we know that there are a multitude of versions out there. Yes, Disney’s version gets the lion’s share of attention, but there is still space for other stories based on the fairy tale to exist and thrive, which is NOT the case with the Dark Tower.
I guess I’m writing all of this to say that a part of me is glad that the Dark Tower failed as a movie. Not for any malicious intent or even to make Stephen King any less rich (it won’t), but rather that now, perhaps, other stories based on the “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” can find purchase in the public consciousness and that Stephen King’s version of the Dark Tower doesn’t become the only version of the Dark Tower that exists in the world. “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” is a remarkably rich and varied poem–other writers should be allowed to formulate successful stories and worlds with the Dark Tower as a backdrop just as King was allowed to do by the publishing industry.
August 4, 2017
Reaction Videos
Two ladies reacting (laughing) at a video of dancers. Image Source: blogs.wsj.com
I’ve recently (since last year) become enamored with “reaction videos” on YouTube. This is a sub-genre where people watch various media (usually trailers) and film their reactions to them and then usually they give some sort of impression of what they think after the trailer & reaction is over.
Usually YouTubers do the: 1) because trailers are short (generally anywhere from 2-3 mins. long), 2) because they don’t generally run afoul of copyright laws per se as the works are copyrighted, but the whole goal of a trailer is to be a sort of “commercial” for the movie, game, or whatever media, so generally speaking, publicity and legal departments are okay with the sharing, reediting, and remixing of the trailers (longer content is trickier as you have to limit your use to small clips of the content), and 3) they’re a popular sub-genre on YouTube. They can bring in tens of thousands of views for really well done reactions and can help a fledging YouTube “channel” get off the ground or stabilize the viewership (& add new subscribers to a mid-sized channel).
The process is fairly simple–I’ve thought about, but so far, discarded the idea of doing reaction videos myself and posting them to YouTube as you really only need picture-in-picture software as most smartphones and laptops have the other necessary equipment (video recording, audio recording, and video editing). The iPhone has all of that and I’m pretty sure Android and Google phones have them as well. If you interested in a slightly more better set up, be sure to visit the following link for more information on making a reaction video: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-make-reaction-video/
The reason why I’m writing a blog about this is two-fold. Well, actually tri-fold, but I’ll get to that in a minute. 1) I would like to start doing scholarship on this particular sub-genre. I’m going to try to see if I can’t somehow pick a reaction/group of reactions and break down some of the rhetorical implications of what is going on in the video. I have Narratology class coming up in the Fall, and while I know that I probably won’t get to pick movies and TV shows to do, if at all possible, I’m going to see if I can’t find some way to work a reaction video into the scholarship (paper, discussion post topic, whatever) and then see if I can build off that, 2) I think that I’m going to assign this as some sort of project in my freshman classes. I haven’t decided if I’m going to make it a major project, or as something that we do along the way (like a two-week project that we do in addition to the normal classwork), but I’d like to have the students get comfortable with “producing” using video/audio techniques and understand the rhetorical implications behind their choices, and 3) (maybe) I’d like to actually add in reaction videos for this blog (& YouTube) for things like E3 videos and Comic-Con trailers (& Super Bowl trailers/commercials). I haven’t decided if I’m “going to go there,” but if I decide to do so, then that would be the obvious places to start (& as they happen yearly, it wouldn’t mean too much of a time investment for me).
I’ll consider it. In the meantime, here is a trailer reaction to the upcoming movie, “IT” by Stephen King that is particularly creepy. The YouTuber is Grace and her channel is one where I watch content regularly. Here is her Reaction to the IT “Teaser” Trailer and here is her Reaction to the IT “Official” Trailer. Hope you enjoy! P.S. This reaction IS for a HORROR movie–you have been warned!
August 3, 2017
Let’s (not) talk about CBS All Access
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So one of the new TV shows that I was all set to talk about was the new Star Trek show that will be debuting in the Fall. New Star Trek show, you say? Wait, why haven’t I heard of this new show? Because, instead of being rational and putting this show on CBS or a traditional streaming service such as Netflix or Hulu, CBS is going to leverage this show and only put it out in the US and Canada on its new fledgling streaming service, CBS All Access for $5.99 a month. 
August 2, 2017
(Belated) Comic-Con Post: Blade Runner 2049
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This was the post I was planning to write on Saturday before the world went all topsy-turvy on me. It will finish out the Comic-Con announcements that I was most interested in. I will return to a couple of Comic-Con based news items that I want to touch on briefly, but I will save those for later posts.
Blade Runner 2049—Blade Runner 2049 Trailer–features a new “detective” and a return by Harrison Ford as the old “detective” in a world of Replicants (human-like androids). Featuring a new villain, this is a sequel that will probably also serve to bring the “Blade Runner” story to a new generation.
I saw the original Blade Runner on cable as a child. I liked it, but it wasn’t a favorite. Although it achieved cult status as one of the first visions of what a “cyberpunk” society might look like on the big screen, it was never more than just a simple Sci-Fi movie to me (just as LadyHawk was a typical Fantasy movie of the time). I was much more into the more mainstream franchises of Star Wars and Star Trek and the Alien/Aliens duology out at the time.
It will be interesting to see the reception to the film. Outside of quirky films like The Fifth Element, cyberpunk as a genre doesn’t seem to really do all that well in the film media (as evidenced by the lack of success of the movie version of Ghost in the Shell earlier this summer). However, where cyberpunk really shines is in the realm of anime. Many of today’s generation grew up on anime shows, while I, unfortunately, was about 5 years before the boom of anime–I saw some early anime, but the real revolution happened while I was in college and during the first years of my first job, so I missed out on a lot of shows that contained a heavy amount of cyberpunk influenced narrative. It will be interesting to see if movie-goers embrace this new attempt or if it, like it’s predecessor, will also only be cult hit.
August 1, 2017
Sometimes the Bear Eats You :(
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To say this weekend has been a total and utter loss would be pretty accurate. I had a big project to do and to turn in for today, but little did I realize the amount of crap that life has in store when you are only trying to do the right thing.
Car: First on the list was my car. I went in for a simple oil change, but the check engine light came on, so I asked if they could check it, but a full diagnostic was over a hundred dollars, far more than my meager budget would allow. They did give scan the computer and my car has some serious issues that I’m going to have to repair as soon as possible. I asked them how much they charged to fix a slow leak in a tire and they said they’d do it for free, but then they recommended I replace the tire (I was going to do it when I got the other work done), and since I didn’t replace the tire, they apparently didn’t plug the leak as I had to fill it with air before my drive to school. That was my Saturday done and dusted.
Project: So I have a project where I have to remediate (change media) of a book that I read for class. The book was on video games and learning and literacy, and I decided to do screenshots and short video clips to illustrate the book’s points, so it was just playing games all weekend. Well, yes and no as I had to specifically look (or set up) game play elements matching the scholarship for the book. Not to say it wasn’t fun, but there are games that I needed to play for the assignment that I wouldn’t have played normally and vice versa. The PS4 let me save screenshots and clips and then transfer them to a USB drive, but that was my Sunday.
Student Loan: So, Monday was assemble the project, right? Nope–student loan issues came to fore. I won’t bore you with the details, but needless to say I had to seek alternate funding after a loan that I was approved by my bank for was nixed by MTSU at the last minute. I spent most of Monday afternoon in a loan office and then had to drive up to school after dinner. I’ve had 3 hours of sleep and I worked on and finished my project at about 4:00 am this morning (Tuesday). So, everything’s copacetic, right?
Project x2: Well, it would be if I could actually send the professor the project. I can’t! It is 2.95 GB in size, far larger than most email programs will handle. Free Dropbox access tops out at about 2 Gigs and their are places that will handle large files, but they are “sketchy” at best. OneDrive will handle 15 GB, but when I tried to upload it, the time-frame was 3 hours. So I’ve got this nice, multimodal Presentation with screenshots and video clips and a podcast, and no way to get it to the professor. As I type these words, I’m trying to get it on to a flash drive, but the program is still working even after over 30 mins and I think that it is frozen. I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do. It’s here and finished and I want to send it to him, but I can’t and it is so frustrating!
