Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Tired, crap, sleepy, shit, tired, blergh.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Today is going badly and I apparently have not the wit nor motivation to drag myself out of this... badness. That's a solid example of the type of mush my brain has been producing since about mid-afternoon. Apparently my vocabulary and sentence constructing abilities have taken an unannounced holiday and neglected to tell me, much less bring me along. I can picture them now, urbane sophisticates conversing about matters too complex for me to fathom seeing as to do so I'd need the very attributes which are at this moment sunning themselves poolside, Mai Thai in figurative hand.

I also seem to have misplaced my typing abilities also (also also? Fucking deserters), but that's due to mere motor function and I doubt he'd have the wherewithal to organize a sneaky sojourn without my noticing. As if to illustrate just how absent he is, I had to retype that sentence 3 times. Sojourn became sohourn, for example.

The question, then, is whether to press on or to call it a day when in actuality it's only been an hour and a half. I should hit the tablet rather than retreat to the warmth of my gaming habit, seeing as COD is poison these days. As put by a contemporary, it is now infested with "knife monkeys". It's settled, I'll read 2 more articles then fiddle with the tablet for a spell. Temptation, frustration, so bad it makes me cry. The maddening thing about COD is the occasional burst of exuberant efficiency that results in kills galore and fame forever. This punctuates the constant fuckwittery so popular with about 80% of its user-base. I'm leaping back and forth like a metronomic frog so that'll do for now.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Blah de blah de blah

Not a whole lot completed this week unfortunately. Preoccupied as I was with matters technical I only read a few articles and wrote barely a word. Not to worry though. I'll reset the deadline for another fortnight, which should be time enough to at least address each of the points I plan to cover. Looked over some excellent illustrative goodies and happened upon a tablet tutorial that nearly brought a tear to my eye. Next week I hope to begin fleshing out a few illustrations digitally.

Back is very sore, especially my left shoulder. I'm convinced it's a posture issue. I'm on the verge of collapse and the words are molasses slow in their arrival so I'll leave it at that and resume when I've had a decent meal, night's sleep and crack at completing this fucking literature review.

In closing, Michael Atkinson is still a deluded simpleton. Watch out for gamers at your next Bandidos meet chaps.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

So much wrong, but a few things right

The right is the slew of work I managed to crank out early this and late last week. I'm gradually building a thong mountain of reviewed literature which would have frightened the me from mid December 09 to death or at least toward some sort of terminal disease that thankfully goes into remission without the need for some Lorezo's Oil style shit.

Foidamore, I've discovered that regular redefinition of the lit review structure is par for the course. The more I write, the more I recognize the flaws in the structure I'd constructed and the more compelled I am to redefine it. I have acquired a stonking expanse of literature on game development, from industry, educational and student perspectives, that I will spend the next week or so sifting through in search of pearls of lemon delight (minus the lemons).

Life drawing started last week and I overcame a stuttering start to finish strongly, reeling off Rubens-esque portraiture like Gok Wan undrapes fatties. I must spend any free time in Melbourne fiddling with the tablet.

The wrong, oh the wrong. Some names. Conroy. Abbot. Special FX. Atkinson. Fucking Atkinson. These people, these, politicians, these self elected moral arbiters have worn thinner than Brittany Murphy. Fuck. Their momentous fuck-ups are well publicized and need not be recounted here, but something is happening. Febrile with misguided and antiquated morality, they threaten free sppech in Australia. Apparently, the greater prominence a politician attains, the further from reality they drift until the feel the need to advise thr nation on topics they have litle to no notion of.

I also read a review of Alien vs Predator and that got right up my nose as the reviewer, to borrow a sample of his eloquent prose, sucked. Despite his utter failure to adequately review tha game in question, I iz buyin it neway yo yo.

P.S. It's really fucking hot tonight. To hell with summer, bring on winter.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

It's go go go in Australia!

Unsure of the reason for the title. I was impersonating Murray Walker this morning so perhaps he has infiltrated my unconscious mind a la John Cusack in Being John Malkovich. Hopefully he doesn't make me go to swingers parties. If you're listening in there Murray, back the fuck out. The mud in that tunnel wasn't actually mud either.

Anyway, we have started developing our little iPhone project today. Before delving further, a digression into a few point 'bout the fud and its current status.

I have an office. Well, I have part of an office. Well again, I have a small part of a room that is unused but we like to call the office. I have a cubicle, a computer that is grotesquely outdated and a few shelves upon which, if I share any affinity with the cubicles former occupant, I can store a half eaten box of cornflakes and a ziplock bag containing an unidentified powdery substance which I suspect is cocaine but is most probably milk powder. I even got some work done in there, how about that.

I met with Mick and briefly chatted to Jo who both opined that I should crystallize, define, realize, specify, concretize. Yes yes yes, in good time. They are right of course; the longer I remain unsure of my exact goals the less likely I am to successfully, erm, succeed. Perhaps a revision session is in order; reconsider the issues, cleaerly define the research questions and, by Satan's cloven hoof, stick to them. Maybe next week.

Did some reading on programming and CS education in general, though largely from a constructivist viewpoint. CSE seems to suffer the same scarcity of literature as game development, so I've hitched my star to the wagon of an Israeli academic who seems to be one of the few to have covered the issue of constructivism in CSE. So far I have no concrete evidence that behaviourism is still the dominant pedagogy, but it is strongly hinted at.

Games I say. About to set about defining an art style for the wee iPhone game we're making having had a pow wow on the mechnanics behind what is sure to be a stunning piece of software genius. I'm now spouting utter crap, but for a solid, decidely motivational reason, that being a need, the origin of which is hidden somewhere in this very sentence, mustgonowgrelpstoomanycommas