So I just spent some time fiddling around with PlanetJemma. The whole time I had this feeling like I shouldn't be there. Like I had stumbled into a chatroom for teenage girls and what was I doing playing around with the sparkly cursor and bloopy type about boys and some missing girl named Abby and how cool science is? I thought this was maybe just my pretentious version of the "if it's something a teenage girl would like, or could do, it's bad" syndrome we talked about earlier in the semester in relation to some A-list bloggers refusal to view Livejournal as a real blog.

But then I did a little research to see who had created this PlanetJemma and for what purpose. Turns out it's funded by the British Council because "Girls in Britain do well in science exams. Then as they get older, drop the subject like a hot Bunsen burner." Check out this site for more info. So it wasn't my personal shortcomings (or narrow perspective) that caused me to dislike and feel uncomfortable in the site, it's designed specifically to target teenage girls, explaining all the fuchsias.

Jan Pronk was a UN envoy in Sudan who got expelled from the country for comments he made on his blog. This article details how the Sudanese government accused him of "psychological warfare" for blogging about two defeats government troops suffered in Darfur. His blog contains highly sensitive diplomatic information, the kind "normally sent back, encoded, only to national capitals."

Listening in class, I was relieved to hear that I wasn't the only one who found it irresistable to push the limits of Facade (trying for kisses, to turn the argument violent, threesomes, asking for more and more drinks etc.) What interests me here is how players attempt to rebel against the freedom they are given in a game like Facade. Rather than trying to complete the game the urge is to romp around within in it trying to come up with outcomes that seem the furthest from what the creators intended.

I'm starting to think about starting my final project, and the first major hurdle is deciding what program to use. I want a program that allows me to create a multimedia main page with links to both outside pages and pages I create ("want" in the most ambitious and naive sense.) I spoke to ITS and they told me how to download Microsoft Frontpage onto my computer, but KF says Frontpage isn't nearly as good as Dreamweaver, but Dreamweaver is only available in the the ITS lab, which, for me, is not an environment conducive to anything but printing out lengthy documents.

Do any of you know of programs available to us that could fit my needs?

I just downloaded and played Facade and I must say it's every bit as creepy as I imagined a game about trying to keep a couple together/break them apart would be. Their facial expressions, the way they tend to interpret innocuous comments made by my character (Ray) as weirdly innapropriate advances, or at least divisive in nature, and how they get mad at not only each other, but also me with no warning. For example, during an awkward silence I made the mistake of mentioning the view, which caused Grace to flip out about how people are always talking about the view.

The relative nature of Facade struck me as very un-game like.

I had never really thought about video games seriously before the last couple weeks. But the readings, class discussions, and blog posts caused me to look back on my own gaming experiences and compare them to my experiences with other arts. One major facet of gameplaying, total different from my relation to other art froms, emerged: Competition.

The best games I played lured me into a war. Immersion for me was throwing the controller when I lost, punching walls, and then feeling angry and silly for hours. I have thrown books, shut off CD players in a rage, crumpled up artwork, but it was always because they were bad and I could tell, not because I was bad and the art had beaten me.

A few posts ago I mentioned how I imagined the future blog to be a wise-looking old man. Well apparently someone out there sees the future search engine as a sexy young multiracial woman in a lowcut but very classy black suit/dress. Her name is Ms. Dewey. She talks on her cell-phone, reads a magazine, and pesters you to query her with more searches. She grows bored and annoyed when neglected.

And she is damn creepy. Why? Well first of all there are the disturbing racial and gender implications of her submissive+sassy attitude and attire. But, and this is what I'm interested in, it seems also to be an issue of invasion. There's something disturbing about having such a vivid virtual personality present itself on your computer screen. Even when the page is minimized or sub-tabbed you can feel her presence, watching you, waiting for instruction.

Today, October 17, the British organization History Matters is organizing the largest blogging event in history. Asking all UK citizens to contribute a blog entry about their day which will become part of a "mass blog for the national record." The blog will be stored in the British National Library and serve as a detailed snapshot at individual lives in the 21st Century.

I wonder if future historians will be thrilled with this foresight or repulsed by the idea of slogging through thousands and thousands of blogs. Also, I'm curious how blogs will be viewed in context as historical documents. Is a truly comprehensive picture of a historic era one that features every single voice of every person living in that time and place, as the ultimate goal of One Day in History seems to be? Is there even any need for history if every voice is preserved? Would it turn into more of a sociological profession, tracking social trends and the effects on the individuals?

I, like magoo, was very interested in the discussion on Monday relating to our frustration with the "bad web design" of Lexia Perplexia and Disappearing Rain. Not being a web-designer myself, I was struck by a vague feeling of dissatisfaction reading the two of them. Upon reflection, I realized it was because of how aesthetically displeasing they were. I'm used to web-sites that look good, with nice color schemes, cool fonts, pictures, layout, etc. I like my websites like I like my magazines: slick.

Certainly part of the problem is that Lexia and Rain are old, and Larsen and Memmott were working with the techonology they had at the time, but I think it raises an interesting question: In regard to hypertexts, is being a good writer not enough? Do you need to be a good programmer/web-designer, too?

To return briefly to our (much) earlier discussions of the blogoshpere, datamining.com has posted some cool visualizations of the blogosphere, a project they grandly call "Mapping the Blogosphere.". They illustrate the fundamental interconnectedness that is a key part of the nature of the blog. Interconnectedness or incestuousness, depending how you look at it.