Wow, its been way too long since I’ve posted anything, probably because I’ve had little to say apart from “still working on the tangible interfaces chapter.”

However, whilst I was doing some editing to the aforementioned chapter, I started thinking about what was the most appropriate way to refer to arguments made in the earlier parts of the chapter later in that chapter.

I had been using something along the lines of “as mentioned above….”, until I realised that ‘above’ only really works in a word processing context where the pages scroll vertically (unless of course you submit your work in the form of a physical scroll, but I think that might fall outside the submission guidelines for PhD theses).

‘Earlier’ seems more appropriate, but it brings to mind Aarseth’s (well I think it was Aarseth) point that books and such are not necessarily linear mediums, as the reader can open to any page they like if they so wish. In either case, I find it interesting that one relies on spatial relations, whilst the other draws upon temporality. Not that it really keeps me up at night though, that would be coffee.

Its been far too long since I’ve written a post. In my defence I started teaching again last week, and of course there was the kind of small preparations and problems to take care off that always end up taking more time than they have any right to. Also in my defence I’ve been re-experiencing the strange cadence of thesis writing. A day or two ago I was trying to think of inventive ways to represent the thesis in a videogame mod so I could thus shoot the damn thing or something; today I’ve been quite enjoying sorting out (hopefully) some of the problems I had. Or maybe I’m just moody from not sleeping well.

Whilst doing a google to check what accessories are available for my new phone (note: not actual size) last week, I found out that it also has an accelerometer that I didn’t know about. Of course I did the first thing any reasonable person would have done, and downloaded an application that makes lightsabre sounds as you swing the phone around. Yes its naff.

As a result of change with my thesis structure its been a little strange writing this week, going from a 70 odd page monster of a document to a fresh blank page. The new start is coming along well, though I did have some problems getting started with it, mostly due to the difficulty of deciding on what to start with. Looking over the various games I’ll be looking at, and at the themes I want to investigate, it was a little tough to work out how to disentangle the themes from each other, as they tend to overlap considerably. For instance, the notion of the interface is heavily connected with questions of spatiality, whilst there is a similar problem with notions of presence and spatiality. At the moment I’m thinking of using the game I’m writing about at the moment [giantJoystick] by Mary Flanagan as something of a test case, going over it in detail to flag the themes and different permutations of the themes that can then be examined in more details with the other games.

So far this approach seems to be falling into place relatively satisfactory, though I haven’t got as much work done today as I was hoping to due to a series of minor distractions. I had a meeting this morning with the lecturer and other tutors for the course I’m teaching in next semester, which went on for longer than I expected. Then, checking The Age website whilst eating lunch I noticed that they were about to start a live stream of a dissection of a giant squid at Melbourne Museum. Having finished my lunch I thought that it was too good an opportunity to miss seeing a 250kg mystery of the deep being cut apart, I guess I have an unhealthy curiosity in giant cephalopods, luckily I’m not alone.

There’s been a lot of news reports about the global credit slump etc, but it really can’t be that bad if I can be approved for a credit card.

Since getting my DS, I’ve noticed that a lot of interesting games seem to be released in Australia anywhere up to a year after they are released in the US (the less said about the lag behind Japan the better), and often cost twice as much. Happily, the DS doesn’t bother with the ludicrousness that is region coding, so I can happily import them from Hong Kong based online shops.

One I’m particularly looking forward to is DS-10, essentially a software synthesiser made in conjunction with Korg. Its currently only planned to be released in Japan, but given that all the dials etc are labelled in english, I can’t imagine the language barrier being much of a problem.

A friend of mine recently got themselves a nice shiny new MacBook, well as shiny as a black matte finish can be in any case. Seeing how he didn’t need his old notebook any more, he kindly passed it on to me over the weekend, so thanks a bunch Alex. Its roughly twice as powerful as the crummy 5 year old desktop I have, so apart from being able to write whilst on the move, I can catch up on some of the games I’ve missed out on over the last couple of years that would have caused my poor old computer to have the digital equivalent of a nervous breakdown.

I received the results of the Course Experience Survey for my class last week at well. At first I was a bit disappointed until my coordinator assured me it was actually a decent score, but from the break down of the individual questions I think the key thing I need to work on is explaining things more effectively.

I didn’t get much writing done last week, as in addition to the public holiday on Monday, I was busy preparing for my candidature review on Friday. Returning to writing this morning it seems that I’ve completely forgotten the tack my argument was taking, though to be honest It had gotten bogged down last week as well. The crux is a synthesis between the concept of affordances and Merleau-Ponty’s conception of habits, but the argument itself seems to be stuck in a kind of vortex, spinning around repeating itself whilst being sucked into the void, or perhaps rather a knotted piece of string that needs untangling.

The review itself went well, though there were some important issues with structure and scope that were raised by the panel, so I’m not really sure if its worthwhile pushing on with the chapter I’m writing as it stands, as it will most likely have quite a different form within a few weeks, but move on to another area instead to at least get my thoughts clearer. Of course that might just add another string to the tangle as well.

Haven’t got much writing done today, as I’ve been distracted trying to glean whatever information I could from forum threads about the Australian release of the iPhone. So far I’ve learnt that:

1) It may cost a lot, or it might not
2) It may be sold prepay as well as on contract, or it might not
3) It may be available on my preferred carrier, or it might not
4) It will be released on 11 July.

An afternoon well spent so far then.

Apparently the Come Out & Play 08 festival is on this weekend (thanks Boing Boing), focusing on the idea of ‘public play’. It features a bunch of Augmented Reality games amongst its mix, I’m kind of too far from NY to go along to any, but Competitive Picnicking already sounds like a winner with its ’sandwich round’.

Feel a bit like a wreck today, I’m not sure what’s going on with my sleep patterns, but yesterday I woke up at 4.30 and couldn’t get back to sleep, then last night I couldn’t get to sleep until 2.30. Of course this morning I woke up feeling exhausted, and it didn’t really help that I had crazy dreams all night as well. I’m having some friends over for dinner tomorrow night, so hopefully cleaning up the house tonight will wear me out enough to get a decent sleep.

Except now I’ve made myself hungry thinking about the lasagne I’m going to make.

Looking forward to this weekend, kind of stressed myself out a little this week trying to finally catch up with my writing schedule, but that’s almost done, and I’ve finished teaching for the semester (though I don’t know what’s going on with exam marking), so it might be a good time to let my hair down a bit, so to speak.

Its suddenly becoming quite a busy weekend, I’m having dinner tonight at a friend’s house before heading to the espy to see another friend’s friend’s band. Tomorrow I’m going to see an art project called Stranger of the Month, before going to the football that night. Then on Sunday I might be going to a forum that’s part of the Next Wave festival on ‘virtual communities’. Phew.