Top 4 H'Amusing Blogs

Being a superhero isn't always easy. There's a lot of paperwork involved. Can you imagine the number of expense claim forms I've had to fill out due to having parked my invisible motorbike in Iraqi airspace?

Consequently, I spend a lot of time sitting at a desk doing paperwork. It melts your brain, reduces sperm count and causes shingles. In order to stave off the onset of brain meltage, I sometimes spend a couple of minutes (read: hours) browsing blogs which tickle my funny bone. These be the best:


Number 4: Kurt @ Roaring Dork

Kurt is a feline loving movie critic. If you want an honest review of a film, one not tainted by corporate dick-sucking and swayed by public opinion, reasonable assumptions or fact - this is your guy.


Number 3: David @ 27b/6

David Thorne is the author of the infamous "spider picture" bill payment thing. You know, the one where they guy tries to pay his bills with a picture of a spider, and the ladies all "yo, you can't pay for stuff with pictures of spiders" and he's all "ok, send me my spider picture back" and she's all "ok" and he's all... etc.

Anyway, he winds ignorant people up like a freaking pro. I would not like to come up against him in an Internet argument. His stuff regularly makes me laugh like a freaking horse.

Number 2: Becky @ Steam me up, Kid!

There is nothing quite like a twisted sense of humour to tickle my funny bone (or any other humorously named part of my body for that matter). Becky blogs monthly about her warped mind and the things it creates.

Number 1: Allie @ Hyperbole and a Half

In my eyes Allie Brosh is the undisputed queen of blog-comedy. Whenever I see another Hyperbole and a Half post pop into my subscription list I have to drop whatever I'm doing (brain surgery, rocket science, curing cancer etc) in order to read it. The topics discussed range from whether Kenny Loggins can regrow limbs, the despicable evil of the common bicycle and the biological origins of pure hate. If you haven't read it before - go there now and read it. ALL OF IT.

NOW.

Respect my (Technorati) Authoritah!

I started VeryDistilled back in November last year - and in these short few months I've grown to love the space to splurge out ideas into your faces every day. But the blogging world is vast and unwieldy; there are behemoths which when compared to my humble hole look like Titans to my gnat (Huffington Post etc), there's lingo which I'm still not 100% on (whats a Ping?) and there are resources of which I feel I could take more advantage (don't you sometimes think that the "hanging preposition" grammar rule is rather stupid? Its one of the rules I am least comfortable with).

Technorati is one of those tools. When I first started blogging I read a lot of guides about how to get noticed, how to get more visitors etc etc - most of them seemed to say the same thing: good content, guest writing and get involved in the community. To my knowledge; I've endeavored to do all three of these things! A number of sites also suggested I sign up for Technorati - so I did. I signed up, staked a claim for my blog, set up my profile and off I went.

Currently, I have absolutely no authority. I'm fine with this! I'm a new blogger and gaining that cred is going to take hard work and perseverance. Every so often I log in and check how my site is doing - got any authority yet? No? Ok!



Also, Technorati thinks the site is still called "Who Moose?"
A detail I've tried to change a number of times.

 There are 184 pages of Gaming blogs on Technorati, and of those 184 pages 146 are filled with blogs with a Gaming Authority of no more than 1. That can't be right, surely? Out of the vast expanse of the internet - it appears that most of the information capital is centered around a very select few blogs. These are blogs I rarely read - Joystiq, PS3 Blog etc. I like to click on the Gaming blog directory and go straight to the end of the list, and go back from there clicking on articles which look interesting.

I'm not 100% on how you gain "Authority" on Technorati - a number of online guides talk about how its linked to the number of links you are gaining, but they are unclear about timescale and magnitude of links etc. Recently, I was linked by Ravious at Kill Ten Rats on a blogpost about GW2 Human Week. My readership immediately went up tenfold (I've since emailed Ravious to thank him for this). But its difficult to gauge what impact that will have on my "authority" - because KTR is a fairly high traffic site, is the link worth more than from a smaller site? If I'm linked again from KTR will it have the same effect or is it diminished? Do I care? Should I care?

Ultimately, I'd like to say thanks to those who come to see my little space on a regular basis. Particularly thanks to those who have started following me (Pepe, Matt and Laughing Lemon and all of those who might be following anonymously), I really appreciate all your support and comments. I don't believe I need to rack up those extra authority points to prove I write decent content, I don't believe that the people at the end of the list are there because their posts are any less interesting than those at the top.


Ps. finally finished The Looking Glass Club - stonking ending. Left me with a decent number of questions, including: why wasn't I clever enough to solve even one of the puzzles?

Gaming in 2011: Part 2

Phew, I've finally got around to thinking about the second part of my "Gaming in 2011" series, Alternate Reality Gaming. Now, in recent months the ARG boat has been rocked by the ripples of the return of Marble Hornets, and the rise of EMH and Tribe Twelve - these chaotic fictions have really grabbed the limelight when it comes to storytelling and intrigue, but there are a significant number of outstanding games running which DON'T concern our Slender friend and I am hoping that in the New Year we can cover a few of them and really give them the attention they deserve.
As in the previous post, I'm going to focus on the aspects of Alternate Reality Gaming which I am most excited about for 2011. Three different aspects, and one honourable mention:

Alternate Reality Gaming

The ARG scene is something I tend to flow in and out of, I will be obsessed for months (particularly if there is a good game going on) but then I will begin to drift away. I drifted away a few months ago (I think it probably coincided with the end of Season 1 of Marble Hornets), but recently I have drifted back and I am very glad I did. UnFiction, to me, is the home of ARGs. It has certainly been the way I have heard about most games, and the main way the majority of players interact and play. If you are at all interested in ARGs, I suggest you head over there right away and take a look around.

The first thing I am excited about for 2011 is Marble Hornets: Season 2. I've posted about Marble Hornets before, with the new Season coming out 2011 is going to be a very busy year for Troy Wagner and the team. In an "Out of Game" sense, I've been following Troys blogspot for a while now and its been interesting to see a little bit behind the scenes on what the guys have to face when they make the series, if you're interested his blog can be found here: Troy Wagner's Blog Machine (although, if you want full immersion, I would avoid it until the series is over). Season 2 is shaping up to be super-duper epic, with Entry #29 just released I would suggest purchasing industrial strength underpants, and watching it with the lights off and headphones on (although not too loud, I about blew my drums out through my bumhole). I'm probably going to lump Entries #28 and #29 into a post later tonight and talk about where the storyline is going fairly soon. Very very excited about this.

Secondly, I am quite excited about the latest offering in the Vanessa Atalanta/Ministry of Argon series, this time called Fifteen Days of Darkness. Last time I played a game by this PM he had me scouring google maps of London, attempting to misdirect operatives to allow a character to escape with some vital evidence. If you haven't had a chance to get in on one of these games, Fifteen Days is still playing (although we are reaching the end game) and we would really appreciate any help! Now, I must admit, I am not the best person to summarise the VA/MoA/Fifteen Days storyline - I came in at the start of MoA and came in late to the currently running game - which is why I am keen to get another player to write an article about it in the New Year. However, what I can tell you is that the games are incredibly well constructed, varied, sometimes impossibly difficult and immensely satisfying to solve.
During Fifteen Days of Darkness myself and other players have solved a series of puzzles meant to represent our breaking down the barriers in the mind of Jayden, the leader of The Order of Oberon. The OoO are a werewolf cult, with a focus on transformation. We have reached the conclusion that Jayden's ultimate aim somehow revolves around the "Flower of Life", a geometric arrangement of overlapping circles which represent numerous spiritual and mathmatical theorums. Our reaching this conclusion has allowed one of the series running characters Vladamir Sirin to hack into Jayden's mind and force him to speak the truth, just for one weekend. Hopefully, we made full use of this opportunity.
I have thoroughly enjoyed this game so far, and I have to admit MoA was the most thrilling ARG I have ever participated in. The PM puts an astounding amount of thought into the running of this ARG and it really pays off. I cannot wait for the finale of Fifteen Days and I am really looking forward to where the story will go from there.

Thirdly, there are a number of low-level grassroots games going on with small casts which really talk to me. The two I will focus on for the moment are: The Sound Guy and TheArtoftheOak. Sometimes I want the big, complex and flashy ARGs like Fifteen Days, but sometimes I just want to sit down and play a BLARG! Thats a blog-ARG, I just created the term - like it? The Sound Guy is the story of a normal British bloke, much like myself, who is into metal and wants our opinion on the sound quality of his recordings, unfortunately the audio is plagued by strange background sound which he can't seem to get rid of - lets just say, everything is not as it seems! One of the things which hindered the real blast off of this game is the fact that TSG hid the message so well! After a few weeks we have only just cracked the file and I'm hoping the game will blast off from there. I think the reason I like this game is because it is ballsy, often games are just stumbled upon, but TSG had the guts to just send his trailhead out to members of the community inviting them to take part. I'm looking forward to where he's going from here.
TheArtoftheOak is the story of Shannon, a simple girl who is into the paranormal. One day her friend reads a passage from the necronomicon, and, well, what do you think happens?! Shit goes down! Now Shannon is haunted by strange children in the night, the visage of Ingrid Cold and crazed stalkers. The blog has been eerily quiet over the past few weeks (holidays, finals etc), but I am interested to see how the PM marries these quite varied threads together - it could turn out that Shannon's friend has, well, just released all hell upon them! Poor gal.


Finally, the honourable mention. Slenderblogs/Slenderblags. The good and the bad, Marble Hornets and EMH have spawned numerous Slenderblogs which, more often than not, fall to the wayside due to overwhelming weariness from the Slender-community. The writers over at The Slender Review do a great job of keeping tabs on what's hot and what's not, if you'd like to really get the cream of the crop then head over there for some top notch reviews. My personal fave is Hiking Fiend, find the review HERE.

Its going to be a very exciting year for games in general. My social life is going to be baaaad....

Weekly ARG Report: After the New Year

Ok audience, I may have been a little hasty trying to set up my weekly ARG report! What with Christmas, Thanksgiving, finals etc etc people have been finding it hard to get time together to help me out. So, I've decided I will put the project on the backburner until after the New Year.

I'm still looking for people who might be interested, I've got a couple lined up but I could always use more help - the subject of the article could be a currently running ARG, chaotic fiction etc, or one which has finished, or even just an ARG-y subject. I will be contacting players through their threads on unFiction so if you see me post and are interested, either post on my blog, on the unForum thread here, or send me an email at: will.r.knight@gmail.com.

There are some really interesting games running at the moment, and hopefully we can get some exciting and informative articles going after the New Year. So, don't hesitate to contact me - even if its just to ask a question, you don't need to be an experienced writer, I'm looking for anyone who is enthusiastic about the subject.

Writing About ARGs

You may have noticed the new page which has appeared at the top of the blog ^ just up there entitled "ARG Report: Looking for Guest Writers". I'm well aware that a lot of the people who read this blog are forwarded from the link in my UnFiction signiture, welcome to my world uF readers! I wanted to make this post to announce we have our first guest writer coming up this time next week!

Ellocia will be writing on the subject of "Great Big Jerk" - this is a game which I was involved in at the start, but then quickly lost track of as shinier and more "Black Ops"-y things came on the horizon. Personally, I'm very excited about how this weekly spot is going to shape up. So, be sure to check back here on Friday 10th December (probably be up sometime in the evening GMT) for Ellocia's post.

If you'd like to get involved yourself, either leave a message here or on the unFiction forum post and I'll get it sorted. Literally anyone is welcome to contribute, on any ARG subject, so don't hesitate to ask me a question and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.

So, to recap:

FRIDAY 10th DECEMBER

FIRST EVER WEEKLY ARG REPORT

ELLOCIA: GREAT BIG JERK

Crowdsourced Stories

I had an idea a few weeks ago whilst reading this article over at Lifehacker, taking inspiration from NaNoWriMo and my own lack of motivation to do any writing over a few pages, I thought about different ways of sharing and recreating new information and narratives. I'm a big fan of grassroots internet-lead creations, which is one of the reasons I like ARGs so much and I love the idea of bringing disparate minds together to throw up something new, shiney and hopefully not too covered in puke.

So, I decided to crowdsource a story. Crowdsourcing originated in business, where, instead of outsourcing labour to third parties, the company would spread the labour over a group through an open call. I am hoping to use a similar technique to see what we can create in terms of narrative.

Over the next couple of weeks I am going to be writing the first two or three paragraphs of a story. I'm not 100% on what it will be like yet, I'm not a very talented writer, but I hope to just introduce one maybe two characters and set a scene. Then I will upload this story to a USB drive in a word document, and include another document with instructions. Then I will place the USB drive in a clear plastic folder, include a paper copy of the electronic instructions and then I will leave it in a public place.

The instructions will ask the indivudual who finds it to contribute their ideas to the story and tag them onto the end of my first few bits. I will also ask them to check in here, tell us a little bit about themselves and what they will be writing. When they are done I hope they will again put the USB in a plastic folder with the note and put it back out into the world. I am hoping that eventually we will have a decent story going and at some point we may be able to judge the narrative to be finished, have reached a decent conclusion and we can look at what we have.

If nothing happens, noone finds it or the trail just goes cold then so be it. But I'm excited about it! I'll announce where I've dropped it on Twitter and on here, with a hope that this will stimulate someone to go and pick it up. More news to follow!