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.

The Omen 4: Unibrow of Despair

Hey, this looks like an interesting article...

Yes, very insightful - had better scroll down.

Interesting! So if I put my relationship status on facebook it is likely that when the Girl finally chooses her moment to crush my feeble heart, it will be played out in glorious technoco... wait, whats that?

Oh sweet Jesus...

HE CAN SEE INTO MY MIND, HE CAN SEE INTO MY SOUL.

Distilling February: A Review

Tis Friday today - and over the weekend I have friends coming over (shock horror! cleancleancleanclean), then on Monday I've got training on how to pick up and put down a patient (Did you know if you fall over in a hospital, the staff are instructed not to catch you?). Consequently, it will be March before I know it and I won't have had a chance to review February like I did last month.

So, here we go:
Topics this month have been very much on the Guild Wars horse. Its been a big month in gaming for me and I've managed to force it down your throats more than a demented Grandfather, desperately trying to buy a four year old's love with Werthers Originals. We had Human Week - which was punctuated by sentimental Hollywood determination on the part of the Human race - then came the Dervish Update, and now, just breaking its back, is Norn Week. I've mused on the nature of gaming, and talked about my favourite characters from over the years. There's also been a fair amount of ARG-y stuff going on, and I've bigged up da Old Soldiers massive, as well as introducing Tarot by Saranna into the mix.

Most Popular Post for February 2011 were:

1. Guild Wars 2: Human Week Summary
2. Top 5 Black Ops Commentators
3. Marble Hornets #34/35 - Aka - Why I need new Trousers
4. Norn Week: To the Mead Hall!
5. Marble Hornets: Entries #28-32

Top 10 Search Terms for February 2011 were:

1. marble hornets 35
2. black ops commentators
3. blue mace lady
4. best black ops commentators
5. marble hornets 33
6. dcuo medieval style
7. marble hornets unfiction
8. best black ops youtube commentators
9. good black ops commentators
10. nudekatyperry

I get 5 or 6 people every single day finding their way here by searching for "naked katy perry" or the like. They must be so disappointed. On the other hand - free traffic for me! Maybe I should name each post after a naked celebrity! Next week: nuddy Carol from the weather on BBC news!

Video gaming time has been split as follows:

DCUO: 10%

Minecraft 10%

Black Ops 40%

Guild Wars 40%

DC Universe Online was my big purchase this month, and as you can see - I wasn't overly impressed. My review will be coming soon, but I've just not felt attached to the game. I've levelled a couple of character for 14+ and then just lost steam. I don't think I'll be renewing my subscription.

Minecraft. Yes, I caved. I bought it. The gaming sensation. You should see my sandcastle, its going to be immense. This game is every bit as good as everyone says it should be, I just want to get into the multiplayer aspect and get some real creations done - can anyone suggest a good multiplayer server?

Black Ops. This game still has a great amount of appeal, and still takes up a lot of my time. I'm on my 7th Prestige now, and have pushed my Kill/Death ratio up from 1.22 to 1.25. Not a lot, really, but its something!

Guild Wars. Old faithful. I managed to max out both Luxon and Elonian Cartographer over the past month, now a lot of my time is spent idling my time away in the Guild Hall whilst I browse the Internet, using YouTube videos as timers and every minute popping back to chug another eggnog. I'm at 3750 minutes now and plan to reach 4000 by the end of Sunday. As I say, I WILL have GWAMM by Guild Wars 2 release!

In ARG terms, there are three main games which I'm playing at the moment:

Tarot by Saranna is a blog-based ARG which I covered a few weeks ago. Its interesting and Saranna is a friendly and engaging character to play with. Its quietened down a fair amount in the past week or so, hoping it will spark up again soon. uF thread here.

Old Soldiers is still running, and faster than ever. There have been leaps and bounds from the start of this game. We've now met the ever sardonic Sigyn, Loki's partner in crime; and the tenacious Special Agent Curran - who is pursuing them. We are currently working through some really brain busters and hope to crack them over the next couple of days. uF thread here.

F.F.E.Y-T is a game which is currently running mainly through Twitter; although every indication is that tomorrow it will all kick off. I'll be posting a full summary of where we stand either Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning. Currently, the PM is playing his cards close to his chest and releasing ever more cryptic clues to his intentions. Can't wait to see what he has in store *grin*. uF thread here.

Interesting blogs I've come across this month:

•  Benny's Adventures: a wide range of topics approached in an engaging and interesting way.
• Darkmatters: regular movie and games reviews from Matt. Funny and insightful. Brill.
• Steam me up, Kid: I don't think I've laughed quite this much in a while.

 Typically, the shortest month of the year does feel like its flown by. I'm hoping over the next few weeks there will be lots of stuff to talk about - lots of ARGy things like the FFEYT developments, more Old Soldiers stuff and a new Marble Hornets entry to build on the epication of Entry #35 - Guild Wars updates with the 7 Hero Build coming in - more info on Guild Wars 2 with the other races weeks and PAX East - and other such banterificatious events to titillate my blogging soul.

ps. I've also jumped from 2 followers to 5! Admittedly, one of them is me - not sure how I did that. But a big thanks to Matt, Pepe, Laughing Lemon and *checks spelling* Najwa Laylah!

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?

Batman: Arkham City Miniseries to Accompany Game

I said back in this post way back in 2010 that Batman: Arkham City is one of my most anticipated games for this year. Browsing through some blogs I came across James at AnimeSentinel who has posted about how there will be a six part miniseries of comics to go with the game. The miniseries will tell the story of the time between the end of Arkham Asylum and the start of the new game.

"No.more.Bieber"... "Aw but!"... "No buts!"

Following the events of Batman: Arkham Asylum; Quincy Sharp (the one time guv' of the asylum and now Mayor of Gotham) has shut down the institution and widened its influence to a large fortified chunk of the city. The inmates are now free to roam the area as long as they don't try to escape. Oddly, Sharp has employed a character named "Dr Hugo Strange" to run the whole joint. 'Cus that sounds like a good idea... Come on Q, think it through! He's called Hugo STRANGE! Jeees... get genre savvy mate.

Anyway, seems as if the first set of two issues of the miniseries will be available in May. I'll be ordering my copy asap. Jump over the AnimeSentinel for more details.

Oops. clumsy.

The Guardian and other News

Over the past week the Guild Wars Universe has been buzzing due to the lead up and subsequent release of the Guardian profession. There are no end of articles summarising the Guardian's role in Guild Wars 2, so I shan't dwell on it for too long: the Guardian is a Soldier class (and so uses Heavy Armour - that's right, armour with a U), he has three inherent buffs; which he can release at any time to benefit his compadres, he can create magical barriers and wards to protect his allies and keep his foes at bay.

I think that's a fairly succinct summary. Now, what I want to talk about is actually using the Guardian.
One of the most exciting things which come out of a persistent game world is the emergent situations which arise. The guys at ANet have tried building this into the game through their "dynamic events" system; wherein traditional quests are done away with and you pick up tasks in the area as they emerge. A number of these dynamic events described by ANet workers have been "protect this town" or "escort this caravan", this is, I believe, where the Guardian will shine and (to a certain extent) outshine other professions. Whereas a ranger might encounter a group of merchants in attack from a group of ettins and attempt to distract and kill the enemies before the merchants get splattered; the Guardian can run up and plop a shield around the men and then begin fighting off the ugly brutes. Similarly, say you encounter another player pursued by Centaur archers, you can save the day by pooping out a barrier to deflect the missiles back at the attackers. This might seem overpowered at first, and even very "monk-y", which would seem to contradict what the dudes over at ArenaNet have been saying about doing away with the Holy Trinity; however, Ravious at KillTenRats points out:

In an aggressive interview with Jon Peters, one of the Guild Wars 2 game designers, OnlineWelten asked about the use of guardian skills targeting allies. Peters said that there are no ally targeted skills in Guild Wars 2. No ally targeted skills. That bears repeating. That may be the “flash of genius” that changes the MMO industry. They are making systems so people play together more seamlessly and simultaneously taking away the mortar that has held together all other groups in prior conventional MMOs. There should be no reasonable doubt that the holy trinity is dead in Guild Wars 2. Another big effect is that almost all of the attention by players will be on the battlefield instead of party UI.

I had missed this comment and really should go back and reread this interview. This is the best news I have heard yet with regards to this profession. The flame-train was a rollin' when it was first released, the name "Paladin" was tossed about a lot and people feared they would become a necessity in a team, and most players would refuse to leave town without one. What this emphasises to me if the importance of positioning and environment with the Guardian; not just the infamous "red barring" (where the monk would just react to the red bar of player health dropping, rather than playing smart and protecting the player in a more active manner). Where you choose to stand and enact your skills will have a great impact on your and your allies well being. I can see the Guardian being a whole lot of fun to play solo (perhaps searching the countryside for people to save, damsels in distress etc) and in especially fun in groups. Hopefully, this approach will breed clever gaming. Either that, all the wammo Paladin fans will play Warrior...

I am looking forward to the next few months on Guild Wars, I've got my predictions for the remaining profession releases all set up, this is how I see the final line up playing out (unreleased and unconfirmed professions in italics):

Soldier Professions
Warrior
Guardian

Adventurer Professions
Ranger
Assassin
Gunner/Engineer - this is the only one I'm unsure about, but I'm hoping for something of this ilk

Scholar Professions
Elementalist
Necromancer
Mesmer

In GW1 info; Canthan New Year is coming up this weekend. Even more of a chance for me to stock up on sweets, booze and party items for when I finally finish Cartographer and have to focus on the consumable titles. If you catch me in the gutter, stoked up on wed bean cakes, twitching and consuming gallons of sugary blue drink - don't worry, I'm just trying to max Sweet Tooth.
It kind of feels like the new expansion; Cantha: Winds of Change, must be just around the corner.

With this and with the 7-hero update coming soon, I'm squeeing with pleasure. Literally squeeing all over the place, all up the walls and down the back of the sofa. I am squee-fountain.


ps. also some juicy info on the Sylvari from the lovely Ree Soesby. Yum...
pps. that yum is for the Sylvari info.
ppps. ok, maybe its a little for Ree.

No Res Shrines: Gaming and the Real World

On the surface, the gaming world is murky and dank. Its dark and cold and confusing, populated by overzealous fourteen year olds slapping their "ep33n" around on FPSs and thirty somethings hunched over keyboards in the basement of their Mother's house in the suburbs and roleplaying busty Night Elves. This is the image of gaming which we have grown to accept; one of mindless escapism, a disconnected self which is controllable in a totally different and disconnected Universe.

Increasingly, however, this restrictive and short sighted vision of gaming is being challenged. Governmental analysts are beginning to confirm something that, deep down inside our heart of hearts, we've always known; gaming makes us better people. This assertion is two fold - on the one hand, there is the exciting prospect that gaming physically and mentally trains us for certain situations. A couple of weeks ago, The Onion jokingly suggested that games such as Gears of War and Fallout 3 are training our children to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?

I know I've learned that surreptitiously slipping a live grenade into the pockets of unsuspecting bandits can be a laugh riot, and iguana bits are no substitute for vast amounts of synthetic Nuka-Cola. Today wired.co.uk (my faithful friend) published an article by Noah Schachtman on how American analysts are using videogames to weed out bias in their operatives.

The agency is looking to axe everything from "anchoring bias" (relying too much on a single piece of evidence) to "confirmation bias" (only accepting facts that back up your pre-made case) to "fundamental attribution error" (attributing too much in an incident to personality, instead of circumstance).

I have to admit there is a place in my gut which leaps at the thought that playing Black Ops might make me into a one man killing machine, a real life 007; utilising my twitch reactions to mow down a camp-full of bogies in seconds and then zip lining into my chalet in Switzerland with my sultry femme fatale; Olga. In actuality I think the only thing I'll end up with is bad eyesight, a bit of a belly and the thumbs of a 65 year old.



On the other hand, there is the implementation of gaming in the effort to stimulate real social change. On a more Alternative Reality Gaming slant; Jane McGonigal's book "Reality is Broken: Why Games make us Better and how they can Change the World" focuses on the attempts at using games to raise awareness and encourage "off the wall" thinking when it comes to national and international social problems. McGonigal states that reality is broken because games act as "happiness hacks" and so are more productive at producing happiness than real life situations. This is why gaming is so often used as an escapist pastime.

McGonigal goes on to state that instead of lamenting this change, perhaps the strengths that can be found in gaming strategies could be harnessed to affect social change. Alternative Reality Games could be used as vehicles to increase awareness of particularly critical subjects or even stimulate players to actively improve their lives through giving real world targets to attain.

Michael Andersen at ARGNet did a sterling job reviewing and summarising McGonigal's latest book, although he is skeptical of the application of gamification tactics to real world problems stating that he does not wholly believe that gaming strategies can be applied to "complex problems that are resistant to game designer attempts to reduce goals to concrete action steps". I've already stated that ARG gaming has affected me in a very real way, increasing my ability to make connections, widening my knowledge of cryptography and deduction and giving me a wide variety of skills which I have already been able to apply to my life.

I'm quite enthusiastic about gaming being a vehicle for change in real life, but I believe we need a big push; something to really carry gamification into the media eye and advertise it as a powerful vehicle for social revolution. Alternative Reality Games need the equivalent of what Facebook was for social networks.

Pokemon: Blasting off Again

I think this is a perfectly normal compulsion that a guy around my age must have upon realising that the rest of his life will be spent working 9-5; Monday to Friday; on a job they don't necessarily enjoy. We yearn for a simpler life, one where pseudo blood-sports are played out by animals imprisoned in tiny red and white balls and only brought out when we are scouring the tall grass (careful, it's dangerous) for more unsuspecting creatures to lock up in my torrid world of badges and battlescars. What I'm trying to tell you is; lately, I've really wanted to play Pokemon.

Personally, I blame GW over at Geekologie for posting the chart of 493 Pokemon drawn as anime girls; finding that I could name all of the first 151 with ease, and at a push, at least recognise the first 250, really brought home how important this game was for me as a kid. Whilst I played Pokemon Red when it first hit the shelves here in England, in my mind the archetypal Pokemon game is Silver (I say Red and Silver as my brother would always buy the other version so we could trade, so he had Blue and Gold).
I bought Pokemon Silver in Singapore airport for a pittance, I believe it was before it came out here in England. We were on our way to Australia for a month long family holiday (during which I would burn myself to a cinder on Bondi Beach, climb the Sydney Harbour bridge, dodge a swarm of jelly fish and swim with dolphins on Christmas day), and our stop over was in Singapore for a couple of days. We'd spent the time there seeing all that was gaudy and bright to see in Singapore; we went on a tour which took us to some magnificent temples, saw some breathtaking scenery and also went to a factory where they took exquisite Singaporean artwork depicting beautiful birds with bright feathers and shimmering claws, and put blinking LEDs in their eyes.
On the way through the airport to catch our flight to Sydney I spied an electronics store with large advertisements for the latest anime comics and games, and there standing proud and feathered was Ho-Oh squawking at me: "Buy me, Will! Spend your holiday money here! Squuaar!!"; and I did.

I played that game for the entire flight from Singapore - Sydney, and every spare moment I had whilst I was in the big city, then on the Sydney-Perth connection flight, and then all the way back to England again. When I got home I bought the guide and me and my brother set about attempting "catchemall!" as the phrase goes. The land was far larger than that of Red/Blue, it was easy to get lost, and even after playing for that inordinate amount of time, months later I was still finding new places to explore. I loved that game with every fibre of my being, hurtling down the cycle path, being mobbed by Zubats in the caves (like the Cliff Racers of Johto), trying (by pure change) to work out that freaking trap door gym, training my Furret up to be a killing machine. Good.blemming.times.

I don't think I ever did catch every Pokemon, even with my brother's help (trading to evolve certain Pokemon, doing the mystery prize infrared thing every day) I certainly never got Mew - I mean, I'd have had to go to a Nintendo conference... and I just don't roll that way. Now, with my gaming experience and the confidence with which my life has imbued me, I feel it is time to return to Johto and get the job done. Maybe I'll wear shorts, because if I remember correctly, wearing shorts means you have to battle...

PS. come to think of it, I also blame the guy on Black Ops last night who sang the entire Pokemon cartoon theme tune from beginning to end. Kudos BO guy... kudos.

Pokemon! our hearts so truuuuue, our courage will pull us through! You teach me and I'll teach you. Pokeeeemoooon, Pokemon!

Nakd Bar Giveaway from Brit Chick Runs

I was flitting around Twitter today and saw a tweet by my recently discovered LGC buddy @MalwenGoch:

18 delicious Nakd bars being given away by @BritChickRuns including my current favourite: cocoa mind. See http://bit.ly/g8hyiE to enter.

Never have I been known to pass up the chance of free confectionary, I duly visited the site and signed up. Brit Chick Runs is giving away a box of 18 Nakd bars for free (to anyone with a British postcode),  all you have to do is go to her blog and leave a comment on the post, then either tweet about her competition or make a post. I decided to do both in the hope that in doing so I will maximise the possibility of healthy-bar-output.

Here's a direct link to the blog post with full details: Brit Chick Runs gives away free Nakd bars. From Brit Chick Runs herself:

Old, faithful, hardcore readers who’ve been following my blog since the beginning [of time] will know I have raaaved about this companies’ bars A LOT! But, weirdly enough, I’m yet to try the new flavours. I rather ashamed of myself really. Especially seeing as they are so awesome:

Raw fruits

Raw Nuts

Natural flavours

Nuttin’ else. Nada! Simply whole foods, rolled together.

Usually when a tweet includes the phrases "Nakd" and "Brit Chick", it's about a particularly rowdy night out in Skegness, chucking up in a taxi and falling asleep in your boob tube - but this is far more wholesome (although it is a little... *snigger*... seedy).

Insert "Eye" Pun Here

I saw this post on Geekologie this morning and had to flag it up as ball crunchingly amazing.
http://www.geekologie.com/2011/01/windows_to_the_soul_eyeball_cl.php
I've never seen picures of the eye where you can actually see the structure of the iris so well:

It really is breathtaking to see the folded nature of the iris, the ring of muscle which contracts iris to dilate the pupil (oh yes, whipping out my A-Level Biology bitches! Thankyou Miss Evans...). I want to thank GW at Geekologie for bringing this to my attention - as well as bringing to my attention many other things, including how to make a motorbike out of two cheap lighters, the evolution of the Batmobile and the homemade lightsabre from last week. However, I DO NOT THANK him for the picture of Admiral Ackbar in a bikini... no, just no.

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

Tribe Twelve - The Young Pretender

Having looked at the family tree of Slender-fiction, its obvious to see the original Somethingawful.com thread at the top, and branching down you have a number of "where's Wally?" type photoshops and then branching into the ARG community you see Marblehornets and then underneath, attached to the spindliest of twigs, is the sea of Slender-blogs/video fictions which we seem to be swimming in today.

Few stand out above the morass of near identical stories. But when one does stand out it can blow up fast, EMH stands at just over 3.5 thousand subscribers, Marble Hornets is at a whopping 31.6 thousand. Tribe Twelve is comparatively fledgling in status to these two behemoths in terms of age but has still managed to rack up an impressive 2.5 thousand subscribers on youtube. I'd like to look at why I think this series is gained popularity in an already saturated field.

Tribe Twelves tells the story of Noah Maxwell, a twenty something living alone in Florida. It begins with Noah explaining how he had a close relationship with his cousin Milo, how they grew apart and how strangely Milo acted in the few weeks before he was found dead in his home of an overdose on prescription medication. Each of the first few videos (described as "Layers") depicts Milo's final visit to Noah, as the videos progress we realise that Milo is being stalked by Slenderman. When Milo dies, Slenderman seemingly stays behind. Noah is thrust into a freaky world of mysterious packages, disturbing phone calls and cryptic messages.


One of the things which makes TT stand out is the technical ability of its producer, the latest Layer "Hello There" has a slick nature to it. It uses a two-tone filter to give the whole message an eerie feeling, images are sometimes too dark to make out until the filter shifts through a spectrum and you can make out the subject for a split second before it becomes too light. This "there and yet not there" approach is indicative of the thread I feel which runs through this whole series - claustrophobia and loneliness.



Once Milo is gone, Noah is alone and facing his demons. Unlike MH and EMH, where the subject is a group of friends, Noah has no support - even putting out a request to fans for somewhere to stay over Thanksgiving. I believe this sense of isolation has built quite a connection between Noah and the TT fans, you feel his pain because he has to share it with you, you believe he has no one else to share it with and so you feel more part of the story.

Tribe Twelve feels more akin to Marble Hornets than EverymanHYBRID. Jay has become increasingly isolated in the latter part of the MH story, and the epic use of silence which MH employ is similar to the cloyingly quiet scene where Noah is pursuing a stalker around his house.

Recently, Noah has been to see "Sarah" - the fan who accepted his request for somewhere to stay over Thanksgiving. They did a live stream and had some laughs but in the end Noah had to leave early with the tweet:

left early. some shit went down. dont know where im headed. fuck this. sorry sarah.



7:21 AM Nov 27th via Twitter for iPhone

So, there has been shit! I know I'm not alone in my curiousity as to what this shit was. I think Noah should just bite the bullet and stomp out to the tower again, alone, at night. Whats the worst that could happen?
 

Blag Blogging. Blug Blibbing. Blub Blubbing.

So I was advised to sign up to Technorati to get my blog noticed. This whole experience has been rather confusing and there are a lot of things I'm not sure I totally understand yet - but, as you will learn, I feel like I probably should understand. Let me give you the lo-down on my past blogging experience:

Start off small. I used to have a blog on Journalspace, back when blogs were first starting to break it big. In my opinion I thought I did pretty well! I only started keeping it because my friends did, and we just used to talk about little things that happened and gigs we were going to and stuff. I got into it a little bit more than my friends, and at one point I was getting a pretty good daily hit count! Honestly, my little experiences even made the local paper! Leicester Mercury, Feb 11th 2006 - Look:

What do you mean you don't see it? LOOK:

Not sure where they got the name "Distilled Space".


Anyway, I think what brought people back was that about 2 weeks after I started the blog, my sister was diagnosed with cancer. The blog became a diary of what it was to be 16 and having a family dealing with a chronically ill younger sibling. The blog basically became about that, about me being angry and scared, and how my family coped and how I tried to cope, about the sacrifices we all made and with my life strewn liberally in between. Thing was, when Kate was declared in remission I kinda lost contact with the blog and I stopped posting. I became one of those guys who blogs only to tell people "Sorry I've not been posting, been totally busy. I'll tell you later. Bye".

However, my interest in online communities stayed. I got into online gaming and when I was at University started perusing blogs again. I didn't start one myself as I didn't feel like I had the time, although I wish I had, I think I would have benefitted from 3rd party input to tell me how much of a dick I was being in certain situations. Still, shouldawouldacoulda. Anyway, riding on the back of this interest my Masters dissertation was on Blogging and Online Identities - I discussed how bloggers create an online identity which is seperate from their real identity, totally incorporeal and therefore without boundaries. In my eyes it was interesting stuff, in the eyes of the examiner it was toilet paper. To be honest, it probably was pure bilge, I was trying to hold down a full time job and write a postgraduate dissertation at the same time and it probably wasn't working.

After this I decided to pick up my journalspace blog again and see where I could go with it. Unfortunately, JS had been taken over by some evil overlords or something and everything I had written over those years had poofed out of existence. It was kind of a blow really, it was a relic of a particularly emotionally charged time of my life.

So, my life isn't totally devoid of bloguration. I have blogged before! And I shall blog again! Help me blog viewers, I am awash in a sea which I'm supposed to understand! To a level at which I should be able to write a paper which could hold up to a review by my peers! Help!