Digital Media Showcase

I went to the digital media showcase last week. Some of the films I had seen in class, and some of the graphics I had seen hanging in the MCA. It was interesting to see them all in context with one another, though. I have to say, Nuria's charcoal film was gorgeous. I also enjoyed the talking faces. They really cracked me up. I thought it was pretty neat when we watched the Sledgehammer one and I knew why Sledgehammer was the soundtrack because of the music videos we watched in class. I know Leeper had shown some of those animations in Intro to DMA, but I didn't know at the time that you all planned on stringing them all together. At any rate, it was pretty neat seeing everything on screen: "Yes, these are my friends and classmates...and they're awesome!"

Board Games

The board games everyone presented last class were pretty awesome. I am so impressed with all the creativity that went into all of them. Javon and Hannah's was definitely very professional-looking. I thought the game was fun, too, but I think maybe after five turns of not getting off "Go," someone who is not dice-rolling-inclined should be allowed to get a gimme and start going. ;) Not that any of us were in that situation...heh. Nuria and Lily's board game was pretty awesome, too. I loved the paper dolls--they looked like they came off a designer's idea page. My little sister Hannah loves glitter, fashion, paper dolls, etc, so she would have had a blast if she could have played that game. The "Galactic Chess" (what was it called?) game was pretty neat, too. That's a game my little brother would have liked to play. He's the only one who ever plays chess with me. None of my other siblings have the patience. The best for using what they already had and working from that, though, was the Etch-A-Sketch-It game. I didn't get a chance to play it in class, but it looked like a bunch of fun. Of course, I was an Etch-A-Sketch fiend when I was a kid, so maybe that just comes from nostalgia. At any rate, it was pretty darn cool.

Evelina's and my board game didn't turn out quite the way we planned, but that was mostly because we ran out of time. We wanted to make 30 trivia cards and 30 opportunity cards, but we only wound up with 6 trivia cards. We made the goal for opportunity cards, though. The money amounts were a bit skewed. As a prototype, it turned out nicely, though. I was quite proud of my little Sculpey graduation cap and messenger bag. :)

Act Justly, Love Mercy

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. --Micah 6:8 (NIV)

Peter Vander Meulen spoke at a Forester Lecture on December 5 about The Micah Challenge. The Micah Challenge is mostly about bringing justice to the oppressed. The main goal of the Micah Challenge is to “halve global poverty by 2015.” As he put it, we should be “freeing captives, opening the eyes of the blind.”

I like this idea of doing all we can to decrease poverty. After all, the average American is spoiled rotten. I get very irritated when my friends complain about how they have to wait until next payday to buy the DVD they wanted or how their parents “only” give them a few thousand dollars for college each semester. Sometimes I want to smack them in the face and shout, “Wake up! You are so blessed! Look around you…you have heat, shelter, 3 meals a day, not to mention so much more extra comforts than you could ever need.”

This summer I made what was possibly a bad decision, but nonetheless a learning experience, when I decided to take an internship 5 hours away from home. Since my parents weren’t there to bail me out of financial problems, to make a long story short, I wound up not being able to buy food a couple times that summer. I can honestly tell you, being hungry without options for nourishment really stinks. Your head is pounding almost all day, and you black out easily, and it’s hard to think straight. You’re really shaky, and all you want is for your day to end so you can go to bed and not feel the hunger anymore. And I wasn’t really in all that dire of straits. I think my housemates knew my financial problems, and they would “accidentally” make too much food for their dinner every once in awhile. But, think of the people who go for days and days without any food, and no kind housemates to bail them out when it gets rough.

I think everyone who has never experienced poverty should try fasting. We always speak about “the hungry children” and it feels so distant. It’s always “the hungry children in Africa, or “the hungry children in China, never “the hungry children in Appalachia,” or even “the hungry children in Huntington.” After this summer, I understand hunger so much better. Now the only thing is remembering the way it feels as the years progress—not falling back into my oftentimes blinded ways, getting so used to my comparatively cushy life. The whole thing about not getting wrapped up in our own silly lives is hard to remember at times. Vander Meulen referenced James 5 from The Message, which he said he liked to use because it was so harsh:

And a final word to you arrogant rich: Take some lessons in lament. You'll need buckets for the tears when the crash comes upon you. Your money is corrupt and your fine clothes stink. Your greedy luxuries are a cancer in your gut, destroying your life from within. You thought you were piling up wealth. What you've piled up is judgment. --James 5:1-3 (The Message)

I’m not sure exactly how possible it is to halve world poverty in ten years, but the worst that’s going to happen is “sixthing” or “thirding” world poverty. Even if the Micah Challenge falls short of its goals, it’s still a good idea. After all, that’s what we’re called to do—to be deliverers of justice.

Creepy Computer Characters, Batman!

I was reading Wired News today when I came across an article entitled Monsters of Photorealism. It talks about how today's technology allows for videogame characters to be so realistic they're scary--literally. The author of the article argues that the closer human portrayal gets to reality, the more uncanny they are. Usually, our mind fills in the blanks, which is why we can equate cartoon characters to human characters. The closer you get though, the more accurate you need to be. I remember Leeper talking about something like this earlier in the semester--the more realistic human animations/drawings are, the more it weirds us out.