After waking up early to do some work this morning, I headed up to the city to get to Brooklyn around 5:40 PM.  Chico (sometimes called gwomeul, affectionately) and I headed out for a night time walk around the Lower East Side.  Chico had this food stuffs place called the Automat that he specifically wanted to show me before we headed to dinner, a place where the ultimate vending machine and fast food treats combine forces to deliver passer-bys with junky sustenance. 

The Venture Bros. - Season One

While the temptation to gorge on ice cream and mozarella sticks was strong, we opted for our apetites to be saved for dinner, where we dined at the lovely Yaffa cafe.  Chicken dumplings and salads to start, penne and crab, and chocolate soufflé.  Yum!

Now we are watching the first season of the Venture Brothers.  Very entertaining!

Horray for gwomeuls!

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First things first! If you havn't glazed over my previous post please take a look and if you can help out, I'd really appreciate it!

Cooking Mama: Cook Off!

Now...for Cooking Mama!

When I first encountered the almost psychopathically kawaii glare emitted by the female chef mentor in Majesco's Cooking Mama: Cook Off for the Wii, I had little to no understanding of what a 'cooking' game could possibly entail.

Lacking the culinary skills to begin with (hey, I'm a college-kid and subsist on ramen and quick-dials to the pizzeria), it took me a while to adjust to slicing, dicing, and meat grinding.  But with a little practice, I'm no longer culinarily (is that a word?) challenged. Hey, Cooking Mama herself said that I was, “Wonderful! Better than Mama!”

In fact, I have been entered into the Cooking Mama's Cook Off gaming competition to be held this Saturday, March 31 at the Nintendo World store in Rockefeller Plaza.  Will I aptly make the G-Hole crew proud and become a virtual iron chef?  Shall I be utterly owned by a Cooking Mama obsessive who can mince polygonal shallots effortlessly?  Only time will tell. Though I hear they're serving complimentary deserts at the event, so there's no question I'll be partaking.

For more on gaming and gaming culture, check out MTV's Gamedrop!

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Dearest friends, neighbors, and comrades of Vox,

As some of you may or may not know, one of my majors in school is that of Media Studies, the theoretical and academic investigation of Media.  As a second semester senior, it is now my current responsibility to formulate a collective artifact of my studies throughout my academic career in a Media Studies Senior Project, or thesis project if you will.

avatar identity!

The project is to be wrought in the form of a multi-faceted mini graphic novel of sorts, most likely constructed in Flash for the purpose of animating certain attributes and enabling the incorporation of sound, movie, interaction, etc.  I wish to tell the tale of three characters: one who is media saturated, one who is mid-media saturated, and the last who hardly uses 'media' at all.  The point of the project is to develop a sense of the way we encounter media in various ways, and most importantly, how we relate our identities with such media. 

This is where you, yes you my Voxer, come in.  Over the course of the week I've managed to gather survey input from close friends and family to inform the personalities/characteristics and motions of the three characters featured in the piece.  If any of you would be interested in participating in this cumulation of identities, mediated or non-mediated, I would be forever thankful.  The survey would be kept entirely anonymous, and other than a snippet of personality or a particular phrase to be included in the final piece, you would be left safely out of the frame. 

Please let me know if you're interested in contributing by either commenting or messaging me, and if so, I will e-mail you the survey and give you mad props in the credits of the piece.  I'm amidst generating the characters as we speak (at the wee hours of the post-time), and whatever response I can get, I'll take.

So thank you in advance, both for reading over this rather despondent plea of a second semester senior attempting to graduate, and for participating.

Hearts, domo-kuns, and multi-layers,

.tiff

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Yesterday artist Philip Taaffe gave a lecture at his school about the overarching history of his work.  It was one of the longer artist lectures I have attended, but his images were relatively engaging so I don't think I paid too much attention to the time passing by.  Instead of going through his paintings chronologically, he grouped them side by side to demonstrate the visual parallels between his years of work.  He was well spoken and an intriguing character, but his overall coverage of his life's work was a little disjointed in my opinion. 

Either way, I thought some of his paintings were truly fantastic.  I've included my favorites that I collected from his website here.  Just thought I'd share!

On a side note:

I have officially determined that I do not write on my Vox as much as I used to, and it pains me in turn.  I think that its always given me a certain degree of relief to set my activities aside for a few minutes and decorate my personal blog with posts about things and events that interest me.  I used to blog every day. I don't know if I can do that anymore (still working on two theses) but I'm aiming for at least 2-3 times a week instead.

Sadly, someone stole my digital camera at a club when I was in Miami over Spring Break, so I may have to be a little creative with the image integration.  This post doesn't really count, considering its about a painter who makes paintings.  Say it ain't so!

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Ochre_-_Zelda_rmx

Ochre

as recommended by rg

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Soda Popinski @ I Am 8-Bit

While your local mall rats are busy pawing their greasy fingers over Emo 1-UP Mushroom sweatbands and run-of-the-mill "retro gaming" T-shirts, feel free to turn your nose up and stroll on over to the I am 8-bit exhibit as a cultured alternative. I am 8-bit, originally displayed in 2005, serves up the more refined examples of gaming culture through a collaborative display of paintings, sculptures,and interactive art inspired by the classic games that have deeply impacted gaming pop culture over the past few decades.

A recent Game Informer interview with curator Jon Gibson reveals what to look forward to at I am 8-bit’s exhibit in its third year, with mention of a work that’ll match the awe of the giant 8-foot NES controller from the premiere show.  Gibson also yields some interesting views on gaming as an art form, as informed by concept art developed for games that is never seen by the larger public:

Well, anyone who knows me in the industry is well aware that I love concept art from games — especially looking at modern stuff. Shadow of the Colossus, God of War, Psychonauts — all these games have amazing concept art that stands separate for the awesomeness of the games themselves. It’s ironic that a handful of the artists in the show actually conceive all that art…There is consistently great art out there in the game industry, and paying tribute to that is an important step, I think, to other industries like film and music taking gaming seriously as an art form. Most people just think games make themselves.

Plug that information into your brain sockets folks -- games are art! So if you’re in the So-Cal area, be sure to check out the exhibit at Gallery Nineteen Eighty Eight in Los Angeles, opening April 17 through May 12, 2007. Can’t round up enough clams to get a ticket out there? Then take a sneak peak at last year’s exhibit in episode 6 of The G-Hole.

For more on gaming and gaming culture, check out MTV's Gamedrop!

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Fun with pixels and .tiff's!

inspriation from my meta-c, rg!

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