As you may have noticed

I don't blog here much anymore, but that doesn't mean I don't blog at all. Matter of factly, I've kept up pretty regular on myspace. However, if yo udo in fact still read this blog for insight into my goings on, leave comments on here and I will transfer my posts from myspace onto blogger. It's only fair, and it leaves you with one less thing to sign up for.
Take care y'all
Ryan

WOO 2!!

I promise those exclamation points will be about as exciting as this post is gonna get. Anyways my day started like any other in beautiful London, woke up, swore at the construction workers outside, took a shower and shaved and went to go get tested.

Job tested....I decided to take on a temp job to supplement my income. I don't think I really need it (but that depends on when my FIRST loan check comes back to me) but it might keep me occupied as well. Turns out, surprise surprise, I'm super smart and capable...so we'll see where that takes me. Hopefully towards money.

Walking into this little market square with my chicken tikka sandwich something caught the corner of my eye. The BBC was reporting a fucking tornado! in London! For a small moment I was transported back to good ol' Wisconsin and days of tornado drills at Faircrest and Deer Creek Elementary. Which I always found funny because if they're destroying the building your ass is toast. Same as those terrorist prep kits they gave us in New York, because on the 43rd floor my chance of survival was uhhhhhhh non. But hey thanks for the protein bars! Anyways I haven't read much about it since but it doesn't seem like the common occurence here given the fact that everyone was fairly freaked out about it. I had some concerns but when I rent running at the gym it wasn't on tv...figured it was just a passing thought.

Midway through my exercise I was thinking about what I wanted to do tonight. The cheap cinema was an option since I haven't been to a movie since The Departed (and this was to take my mind off shit, which helped but I like going into films with a clear head). Realized holy shit, I have a talk tonight. Yes people, I go to talks outside of class, mostly to broaden my mind to other shit going on in the world. However ,this was about games in learning and since that's pretty much the sum of what I'm studying I figured it was worth going.

Boy was it not worth going.

Firstly, you have to realize since this is considered 'new' media and 'cutting edge' that every single goddamn lecture I go to about these things outside of class always has some stupid 'innovative' technique. Mostly it's just podcasting which is fine, but no....not this time.

The guy who was moderating the event had four guest speakers:
1. Children's media centre director
2. Child psychologist
3. Game theorist
4. Educational software developer

So I was stoked, this was a good group of people to get some ideas from and maybe bounce some of my stupid thoughts unto them. But oh no...this guy had other plans.

We were assigned into groups of people and got ten TEN minutes per person to ask questions. These groups were about ten deep and mostly teachers so they were just rife with questions. It also seemed like everytime we sat down we had to get up again, yes we were moving from group to group like school children.

Basically I wasted a hour and a half jumping around when it would have been better spent for each one to talk for 20 minutes and then take questions. This is what happens though with this subject because no one really knows how to deal with video games just yet so everytime you go to one of these lectures it's simply an octopus flailing about with opinions. Also some things didn't even seem related to games in learning.

For instance, there was this one fellow...the educational research developer who talked about the kids having palm pilots and reading e-books of Dickens, when they wouldn't have done it before so this was the utopia of technology!
I called bullshit because it's an e-book and you have no way to determine what the retention rate was for these children to absorb and be able to think critically about Dickens. Also, these gadgets could take pictures, store songs, IM, all that fun crap. You mean to tell me they didn't want these things so badly to chat and take photos, but to read Dickens?

And then, this didn't even have anything to do with games! e-books are not games it's just the literary text in a different environment! It's not a game environment, it's an electronic environment!

So...it was disappointing, but I'm gonna see if I can get a hold of the media centre director because he seemed the most impressive in his attention to detail and passion towards this subject.

Oh...Waitrose couscous, saved my life...yeah that's really all I have to say on that.

Different note, something awesome happened yesterday and possibly it may be happening tomorrow. I'll let you know as to this development.

Hope everyone is doing well, and has Christmas spirit and eating chestnuts on fire (actually don't, I have had them here and they look like nads and taste like grandma smell) but yes, do have some fun this holiday season. Also, need a comment, should I spend Christmas in Paris, or London?

WOO

London is filled with little intricate ways of thinking/behaving/living that have made this former New York resident on more than one occasion, angry. There is something nice about living in a city that isn't an enormous concrete jungle yes, but at the same time you don't get the same sort of service that one has come to expect.
They do have the breakfast down, except for the bagel but I'll forgive them.
Anyways, to my point....I live in a dormitory which isn't anything new to anyone who has either read or talked to me in the past two months. It's right next to a construction site so that everyday at 7 am sharp whether I'm awake or not, drilling takes place that is loud, obnoxious and apparently is done for no real reason because this building hasn't changed one iota since I've moved in. I accept the dormitory temporarily due to the fact that I'm still waiting for my financial aid check to be converted which has made me a great saver as far as spaghetti in a can for dinner and bread and oranges for lunch. MMMMMMM However once this check comes in I'm going to be making an impassioned attempt to break my contract and move out of here into something more civil for the next 6 months. The biggest reason is as follows:

and yes, this is the biggest reason

The Internet connection.....yes, I'm going to get some looks but this is very important. You see, I'm a media student...more specficially, I'm a media student whose main field of study is video games and computer game culture. This means that frequently I have to go online to download game films or open source video games or even software such as Second Life to tinker and try to gain additional insight into this world that I will probably be devoting the next few decades of my life. However, the internet connection here is the absolute worst connection I have ever had. First, it isn't wifi enabled which by now...c'mon, even Starbucks has wifi in every coffee shop, you mean to tell me the little tin can of a starbucks across the street from me has wifi and you can't? You're the London School of Economics! Also when I do get around to connecting my computer to the internet here the download speed is incredibly slow. I wrote to them about this and told them how important it was for me to get a faster connection due to the activities that I have to regularly take part in (porn omitted) in order to get the most out of my time here. I'm waiting now for my gmail account to load up so I can post the reply...see it takes that long. Oh fuck it, anyways what it said was that they have figured out what things can get the most bandwidth in order of priority and of course, media gets the lowest ah here it is

"We received emails from many other students in different departments such as Information System, Media Study etc and we do understand you need internet to succeed in your academic study. At this moment the school is unable to do much but we are thinking about limiting the bandwidth for individuals so the people who are doing massive downloads may be stopped."

So, basically no dice for your big shooter. If you want good internet you're gonna have to trek 30 minutes to campus to get it. Problem is that the only place where I can access these games and tax the system as much as possible is in this center that you need keycard entry. Even though I have a keycard it automatically shuts off after 6 pm every night and doesn't work at all on the weekends.

Thankfully, I just became a student representative for my department and get to have my first meeting on Wednesday. The top three things I'm discussing.

1. The crap fee for auditing a course (we actually have to PAY THEM MORE to not grade us)
2. The firewall in the WLE Centre (see above) that makes playing multiplayer games and hence MY RESEARCH impossible.
3. Allowing the media students unfettered access to the WLE centre both on nights and weekends. It's not like we're gonna have a party in there, it's a freaking computer lab people.

On that note, I should go back to reading more about how nerds take TV shows and make them into their own fiction, artwork, etc. (myself included, well when i was younger) but this week should be involving an ale festival and I'll be attending two talks given by the science museum about the future of games in education. Hopefully it'll be fun.

This just happened

Five minutes ago.....

We have a printing allotment of 400 pages per student per year. This may sound like a lot, but for MA students who are printing a slew of journal articles in preparation for their dissertation it absolutely is not. However, I found a loophole....you cannot print all you want but you can copy all you want. So, this is what I've been doing copying just about anything and everything I can get my hands on. I believe I wrote previously about the English and how they simply don't know what a stapler is or how to use one, well the copy center has a stapler! However, that stapler has been out of staples for the past two days. Thinking I'll be the good guy, I go up to the library checkout counter to ask for two things:

1) Stapler for me!
2) Staples for everyone!

The conversation basically went like this:

"Hi, I was wondering if you had a stapler I could use real quick?"
"ummm......we don't have a stapler up here but we do have.........paper clips.......for.......you......to........."
"use?"
"yes, that's it"
(side note: I hate paperclips, they're my nemesis)
"Okay then, oh and one more thing. I was wondering whom I would talk to in order for the automatic stapler by the copy machine to be refilled"
*blank stare*
(this happens verrrrrrry often)
"Um.......I didn't know....we had a stapler over there, but you'd have the people in charge of staplers is media services)
(two things: yes, they actually have someone IN CHARGE of staplers, and two......the media services counter has been completely demolished in place of new construction, for what I don't know but it's taken down the number of computers to use as well as incorporated hammering and drilling into the library...also the WLE centre which are were all my classes are at, is right next door.)
"Well, they're closed ma'am is there someone else I could talk to?"
"Ummm...well....no....as far as I know it's just media services and they'll be open downstairs on Monday"
*blink*
*blink*
"ooooookay then"

So basically, in order for staples to be refilled into the only stapler in the entire library I have to key card out of the library, go downstairs talk to them to refill the stapler and then come back up, recard in, and wait for them to refill it.

Wow :)

Simply wow :)

Another forgettable night in the dormitory.

You ever have a dish called ham and egg pie? If you're Joshua Hoppert you're emphatically shaking your head in an up and down motion because not only have you HAD it, you're probably eating it right now.

Well it's exactly what a ham and egg pie would look like. Not overly good, but that is the caliber of food I get fed here in good ol' Bankside House. I won't go on and rant about the food here because you've heard enough about it. However I will say I'm going to Elswere Road tomorrow with an Egyptian, a German and an Indian...this are is supposedly the place to be for really good middle eastern food. I'm extremely excited.

My week routine now consists of me going to work out early in the mornings and then heading to school to read or attend lectures. However, with the amount of stuff that I've been reading, it really does seem like I get nothing done when I'm there. I read a paragraph, go huh, reread, go huh, repeat. There is an amount of dissatisfaction within me that this program doesn't concentrate as much on video games as I would have liked. Rather, it does concentrate heavily on narrative theory (which arguably, games DO have....don't disagree Frasca, you'll only be wrong!) But yes, not so much with the video games. I have a feeling I'm going to have to carve out a niche for myself otherwise I'm gonna get more pissed off about spending the money I'm spending to live and school here.

Last weekend was a festival in celebration for Guy Fawkes day. Basically, they have fireworks and bonfires to celebrate the fact that said man didn't blow up the House of Parliament with a shitton of gunpowder...the gunpowder treason and plot! I can tell you that the festival was pretty cool and the fireworks were alright. I can also tell you never to eat roasted chestnuts (leave it to the song) and that I dont know of any good bar in the Chelsea area. They just have a good football club, which from what I read in the dailies is not doing so hot. Oh well.

Anyways, I spend a lot of time just walking around hey sounds like New York! Finally made it to the Tate Modern but....hahaha didn't ACTUALLY see any of the new paintings. Just kinda walked in and walked out. Yes, it's across the street from me, which grants me a certain liberty with being absolutely lazy about going to see it. Someday I look at more of the pictures. I have already been there, but i'm sure some new shit is there.

Wrapping up, with grad school I've already thinking and being asked about what I plan on doing once I leave. I suppose the fortunate thing about my situation is that I really only have to hold allegiance to Wisconsin because that is where my family is. However what I've been pointed out to on more than one occasion is the fact that I didn't visit them a whole lot when i was in Wisconsin. I had grand plans when I got here, I had grand plans for leaving here, and now I just don't have any plans anymore. Slightly liberating and at the same time unnerving. Absolutely amazing how things never go the way you planned, so it's not even worth it to think about it. I suppose what is left for me to do is just put my head down, read Barthes, Althusser and Foucault and try to manage as best I can.

When I find more pictures I'll post. I'm going through a stack, deleting ones I don't want, mulling over ones I have. I'm not going to lose sleep over planning for it. Then again, I don't sleep.

Nostalgia

There are a million more I'd love to post, some I think are inappropriate at this time. However.....well it's just nice to look back and smile. Plus, I'm bored in London right now and the pubs are closed :)

At all times, maintain composure, despite all that is falling around you.

That should be my creed, although I'm sticking to another one that even though there have been times when I've tossed it straight out the window. Eventually, I come back to it like a pitiful child who realizes that he's gonna get scolded sooner or later, better it being now.

No, I'm not telling it to you, because it's mine. I like it though and I've said it to myself for years.

So......what has happened in these past few weeks.

Well, I'm started to realize that London isn't entirely rainy and cloudy all the time....just most of the time. However, and I was rather surprised, I've become quite used to it. There are however, suggestions that I wish to pass along to the city of London to make everyone feel much much better about themselves and the state that they live in.

So they say London is a sullen, stoic city, true statement. I'm pretty sure I haven't smiled in over 72 hours. Some might've said that I laughed today (recently the term electrogasm seems to amuse me) but I'm pretty sure it was merely indigestion and nothing else. However, I think I know why....clouds and rain nonwithstanding of course:

I'll take you through a normal Friday....actually it's fairly normal for most people but this is REALLY normal for everyone come Fridays.
See for those of you who don't know, bars close here at 11PM. No, you read that correctly 11 IN THE EVENING.

"But Ryan, I read in such and such that some places have 24 hour licenses"

Why, yes you are correct they do have 24 hour licenses optional for most pubs in London. However, like everything else in London, it takes A HELLA LOT to get those types of licenses. Those who would even consider having such license, wouldn't want to deal with the thousands of drunk brits (and believe me, these fuckers can be obnoxious) wanting that extra pint of Kronenberg. So they don't really count, and most places charge cover charges, everyone knows my opinion on cover charges.

So....you get off from class or work or sodomy or whatever and you txt your friend and say "pints?". In about ten minutes not only will you have a location, but odds are a bartender somewhere will have picked up the psychic signal in the air and will have already started pouring their warm pint for your consumption.

You then drink, and drink, and DRINK. You might get something to munch on some crisps or pork scratchings (these things could kill ANYONE, I don't recommend) or peanuts, but the important thing is that you drink.

"Drink Till 11" is a very popular phrase here, which means you put down that beer and fast. Already I've already have several pints in front of me before I'm even half way down with my first one. This being said, lemme also say this:

Before 11PM, I will drink ANYONE under the table if beer is concerned. I've already been viciously trained and living in a bottle for a little while this past month I've also had some extra time to practice. I can drink a pint of Guinness in about 3 minutes and anything else in about 4-5 minutes if I really want to. It's not too far fetched for some off the people I've met to drink 7-10 pints in about 3 hours...this is if they're taking it easy. Strangely enough, I'm usually taking it easy.

So you finish up, and if you're with TC he drags you to an afterbar and before you know it you're sniffing Jaeger in a bottle and wonder just how your night is going to end.

I'll tell you how it'll end.....dancing like a moron in a hostel bar because that is the only place that's open and then hitting a kebab house. Where you eat a kebab with oodles of hot sauce and chips on the side. This is your dinner, since you were so busy wanting to drink you didn't want to make room for dinner.

Next day:

Your mouth tastes like ass, you feel like someone just took you out with a baseball bat and left you for dead and oh yeah, you had something completely reeking of sodium and fat to soak up alcohol and now you're waking up to a cloudy sky.

Their diets are horrible, I've tried TRIED to find a place to get some hummus with a pita, something semi-healthy to munch on for the way home so I don't wake up feeling like a mugging. This just does not happen though, every other place is either a curry house, a kebab house that serves "burgers" (they're not burgers, oh man have I learned that the hard way) or fried chicken huts that serve subpar chicken but make up for it by drowning their soggy chicken with chips.

No wonder why everyone looks so sullen most of the time.

Which reminds me, I should probably get a pint or sixteen tomorrow...it is Friday after all.

What? I didn't say I was going to actually do anything about it.

Geeze, what do you expect?

Not everyday has to be a good one.

I'm feeling much better now, really I am.

Thanks to everyone, who was there for me to talk to. For me to vent my smoke plumes of insanity over and to hope that everything was going to work itself out. Thanks to Marx and TC, Rachel, my stepmom, Kornfield, Smoke, Kato, Jill, Nicole, Michalski, Wendy Fan and about a gazillion other people for being there when I was breaking down. I love you guys more than you'll probably ever know.

That aside, I just wanted to share something that to me, was a beautiful reason to get up yesterday.

My day yesterday was a lot, there were things that needed to be developed, and that was done. I wanted to meet up with TC for a drink at this Bavarian Beer house in London (Dan it was great, even Ein Prosit was sung, we thought of you instantly). So I had to take the tube from my campus to this area I'm unfamiliar with in order to meet him. I accidentally got off on the wrong street underground so I was walking in the wrong direction; I'll never be more grateful for that.

You see, in London, they have an afternoon newspaper 'war'. Two newspapers, London Lite and Yourdailylondon (something like that) always stake themselves out in front of the tube stops and pitch for your business. Free and tabloid fodder, but hey it kills some time.

Anyways, I'm talking towards where I think this pub is when this very small asian chlid comes walking up to me with a dailylondon. It just so happened that I was reading it already so I showed him that I already had one of his newspapers. The mother was watching in the distance with a huge smile. The kid looked at the paper, looked up at me and gave one of the most beautiful smiles I have ever seen in my entire life. I got misty and laughed because it came at the right time, when the day was stressful and I was ready to forget everything. There is a feeling, deep inside me, that I won't ever forget that smile. I really hope I don't.