Life is boring...so here's a picture of moldy banana bread!

Getting back into the groove of writing is pretty tough, I fairly admit. Especially when one's life consists of a set routine that mostly goes like this - sleep, get up, go out to appointment/class/shop around, come home, eat lunch, read, read some more, go on computer, make dinner, watch tv, eat dinner, watch more tv, go to sleep. That's my average day in a nutshell, little to no thought required. So it comes as no surprise when I struggle to think of something to write, anything to get my mind out of pilot mode. Here I am, sitting at my computer, staring at a blank screen, my mind focused on nothing, my eyes roaming to the movie I'm watching on tv. Dammit, what happened to my creative juices? No doubt it needs a little laxative to get going since it's all jammed up like my grandfather's bowels.

In the meantime though, enjoy this picture of my moldy piece of banana bread, as promised.

My project is finished - now what?

Today I had to present my project to the class, which was the main purpose of this blog's existence. Now that it's all over, I'm left wondering - what now? Obviously I should dump the whole thing and get on with the pointless routine that is currently my life. That's the easiest choice. Or I could stick with this whole blogging thing and get back into writing, making an effort as it were to break my mind out of my happy little rut and force it to think, to focus, to get the old gears spinning and whirring. Probably not a good thing since I'm now left wondering what to blog about since my life is about as exciting as watching the green mold grow on the cling wrapped piece of banana bread that's been lying on my desk for the last couple of weeks.

Hey, that's a good idea. Every so often I'll post a pic of my slowly decaying piece of banana bread until one day I'm forced by hygienic standards to get rid of it. Just the type of thing to keep you, the loyal reader engrossed in this blog. Oh yes, this blog suddenly has a new creative lease on life.

Stay tuned.

Assessment Questions

Michael Lyne

Fighting Fantasy in the Media

In 1996, Deathtrap Dungeon was released as a third person action game on the Playstation. Personally I thought it sucked but at the time it seemed pretty exciting.

Deathtrap Dungeon - Intro and Gameplay, Viewed 10th October 2011 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghkNOpbidgQ>

In October 2009, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain was adapted into a first person game on the Nintendo DS and was generally met with favorable reviews.

Fighting Fantasy DS - The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Viewed 10th October 2011 < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcoTldZcOdw>

Since then, several applications have been developed for the iphone and a minigame based on the book Talisman of Death was released on the Playstation Network.

Fighting Fantasy - Talisman of Death Official Trailer, viewed 10th October 2011 < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEzqSbbvE9s>

The 2009 Series

The publication of a new Fighting Fantasy novel, Stormslayer in March 2009 was accompanied by a new re-branding of the range with new covers and also included a couple of new titles and several reprints. Currently there are plans for further titles to be published.

TITANNICA (2011) Series History Viewed 4th October 2011 <http://fightingfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Fighting_Fantasy>

Fighting Fantasy, Viewed 10th October 2011 <http://www.fightingfantasygamebooks.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8&Itemid=9>

The 2002 Revival

In 2002, Wizard Books bought the rights to the Fighting Fantasy series and has put many of the original titles back into print, making the controversial decision to change the order of the books in order to fit their reduced line-up (initially only the gamebooks by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone were published) and to incorporate the Sorcery! miniseries into the core series. The original cover art has also been replaced. 

In 2005 a new Fighting Fantasy book, the first since 1995's Curse of the Mummy, entitled Eye of the Dragon was released by Wizard Books, written by Ian Livingstone. This was followed up by Bloodbones and later in 2007, Howl of the Werewolf by Jonathan Green. That year also celebrated the twenty fifth anniversary of Fighting Fantasy which was commemorated by a special edition of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain that included bonus extra material. The range was planned to continue in 2008 with further titles, although nothing was eventually published. 

TITANNICA (2011) Series History, Viewed 10th October 2011 <http://fightingfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Fighting_Fantasy>

Here are some examples of the  new covers:

Fighting Fantasy, Viewed 10th October 2011, <http://www.fightingfantasygamebooks.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8&Itemid=9>

Pictures of my collection

Here are some pictures of my collection. I've been pretty much collecting them since I first got into the series way back in 1994. Over the years I've rummaged through many second hand stores and scrawling through ebay to find these books. Alas, a couple of these books have eluded my efforts to add them to my collection, but to this day, I still look for them whenever I get the chance to.

Playing Fighting Fantasy

Here's an example of a typical gamesheet, although this design differed from book to book.
http://the-lost-and-the-damned.664610.n2.nabble.com/file/n2997150/ff01sheet.jpg

The FF series became a phenomenon in the 80s due in part to their popular interactive element but more importantly due to the exciting rule system that was the core of the FF series. As well as allowing the reader to control a fictional character, the books also acted as an ingenious game that a reader could play individually by his or herself. This was achieved through the use of a pair of six-sided dice, a pencil and a eraser and a basic game system. Using the dice before reading the background to the story, the reader or more correctly the player could create the fictional character's strengths and weaknesses.

This was determined through the rolling of the dice. These characteristics were known as SKILL, STAMINA and LUCK. The first characteristic, SKILL represented the fictional hero's physical prowess and fighting expertise. STAMINA represented the overall health and strength of the character which in turn affected their ability to survive wounds, fatigue, poison or disease. LUCK represented how naturally lucky a character was and this could often be used to enhance the success of attacks or help determine whether a choice or action was fortuitous or otherwise. The value of the SKILL and LUCK characteristics normally ranged between 1 and 12, adventurers starting with a number from 7 upwards (a single dice roll plus 6). STAMINA rated from 1 upwards with the fictional hero of the book starting with anything from 14 to 24 (the roll of two die plus 12). An adventure sheet provided with the book would allow a player to keep track of these scores and events occurring from start to finish.

Encounters with characters, creatures or monsters could occasionally lead to combat where SKILL values beyond 12 and STAMINA above 24 could be faced, but no one except players used a LUCK score. During combat, a player would be asked to roll two six-sided dice which would be added to their SKILL score to become ATTACK STRENGTH. The dice would in turn be rolled again and the result added to the opponent's SKILL score to become their ATTACK STRENGTH. Whoever's ATTACK STRENGTH was the higher would be the victor and the loser would have to deduct one or more points from their STAMINA until nothing remained, resulting in death. All characteristics however, could be restored through various methods such as magic, rest, potions or food.

 Fighting Fantasy, What is Fighting Fantasy? Viewed 4th October 2011

<http://www.fightingfantasygamebooks.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7&Itemid=37> 

The Fighting Fantasy series (1982 - 1995)

By the time the series had ended in 1995, 59 books had been published along with many other companion books, novels and spin offs. The following video quickly goes through them all.

Adventures in Fighting Fantasy, Viewed 4th October 2011  <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO-Gkz92cjg>

A Brief History

the-warlock-of-firetop-mountain-2a8tbzw, a photo by Michael Lyne on Flickr.

In 1980, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, co-founders of Games Workshop, decided to capitalise on the spreading enthusiasm for Dungeons & Dragons by creating a series of single-player gamebooks. Their first submission, The Magic Quest, was a short adventure intended to demonstrate the style of game that they sought to create. The Magic Quest took over a year to be accepted by Penguin Books, at which point the two creators devoted a further six months to expanding and improving upon their original design, resulting in The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, the first Fighting Fantasy gamebook. After several rewrites, the book was accepted and published in 1982 under Penguin's children's imprint, Puffin Books.


Following the success of the first book, Jackson and Livingstone began to produce further gamebooks, writing solo in order to make better use of their time. In 1983, Jackson produced the second Fighting Fantasy adventure, The Citadel of Chaos, and Livingstone the third, titled The Forest of Doom. Jackson then produced the first book in the series with a science-fiction setting, Starship Traveller, and Livingstone the first with an urban setting, City of Thieves, as well as Deathtrap Dungeon and Island of the Lizard King.


After this, the series expanded to include many other authors and enjoyed good sales throughout the eighties but experienced the same difficulties in the early nineties as the rest of the role-playing industry, brought on primarily by the increasing dominance of video games. The series was slated to conclude with book 50, Return to Firetop Mountain, but this book was unexpectedly successful, experiencing better sales than any recent gamebook and prompting an increase in demand for the Fighting Fantasy back catalogue. As a result, nine further books were written through to Curse of the Mummy. The series was discontinued after this point, although rumours still persisted of book 60 which was apparently called Bloodbones. This title didn't appear until the series was republished by Wizard Books in 2002.

TITANNICA (2011), Series History, Viewed 26th September 2011 <http://fightingfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Fighting_Fantasy>

My Project and RSS Feeds - Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks

The topic that I've (finally) chosen for my project is a series of books that were a childhood obsession of mine called Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks. More stuff coming soon, of course. Oh yeah, and here's the URL where I got this nifty picture from, plus the sites where I found the RSS Feeds for my project:

http://fightingfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Fighting_Fantasy

http://fightingdantasy.blogspot.com

http://www.fightingfantasygamebooks.com


The style that I'm using for my references is the Harvard system which I took from the University of Tasmania's website: http://www.utas.edu.au/ejel/referencing.html

Discovery Exercises - Podcasts, RSS Feeds and I-Google

Podcasts

Here's a couple of podcasts I subscribe to. First, there's Gateworld, pretty much the best site for all Stargate news and discussion and coincidentally my favourite show since when I was about ten. They cover a lot of interesting topics from interviews to episode breakdowns

http://www.gateworld.net/podcast/itunes_podcast_rss.xml


IGN is a well reputed general entertainment site and their podcasts cover a range of topics from movies to video games

http://feeds.ign.com/ignfeeds/podcasts/games/

Here also is the National Library of Australia podcasts which I found after a couple of Google searches.

http://www.nla.gov.au/podcasts/feeds/talks.xml

Library podcasts are useful for people involved in the industry to listen to professionals discussing their views and commenting on the latest developments. They are easily accessible and being only 1 - 10 minutes in length won't take too long to load. These snippets can prove invaluable in the library industry, which is always changing.


RSS Feeds and Google Reader

To be honest, I never really noticed RSS feeds until I started this exercise. At first I found it kind of confusing, but when I started using Google Reader and adding RSS feeds to it, I saw the advantages of having the information come to me. In my personal life I would be able to keep up with the latest entertainment news and whatnot and in my work I would be able to keep up with the latest developments in my industry. Libraries can take advantage of this technology by sending out the latest news and events,  author interviews and book reviews.

I-Google

I was surprised at what I-Google could do when I first created my account. Joining my gmail, YouTube and Google Reader accounts to the page was great (although it took me quite a while to figure out how) and would save me the bother of accessing them on their own. It was like a one stop webpage. Plus there were plenty of widgets to add including daily Calvin and Hobbes and Garfield comic strips which was a nice bonus.

A Couple of Discovery Exercises

Discovery Exercise - Embedding a YouTube Video

It was actually pretty easy to put a YouTube video into my blog. I found this classic Simpsons clip on YouTube, copied the URL, then posted it in the 'Insert a Video' option in my post. Done and done.

Discovery Exercise - Social Bookmarking - Delicious and Library Thing

I admit that I spent most of my time with Library Thing, since I'm an avid book lover and have a ton of books at home that are in desperate need of cataloguing (as well as shelf space). I found it a pretty useful tool to keep track of all my books (mostly fantasy), as well as finding recommendations for other similiar themed books and authors. There were also reviews, groups and discussions going on and a whole range of authors that use Library Thing for their own reading which I found pretty interesting.

http://www.librarything.com/home/mysterionoodle

Delicious seemed to be a pretty useful site for bookmarking useful websites and adding tags to categorise and organise them. I didn't spend that much time with it, but from what I explored it seemed that this would be a useful tool for sharing links with other people and seeing how they have tagged similiar links, building a kind of online social network.

Some pictures of my neighbourhood

Discovery Exercise - Using Slide and Image generators

Playing around with Slide was pretty fun, as you can probably tell by the pictures I've posted here. I also tried to use Picnik, but most of the cool features were only available if you bought the upgrade (boo). I began by uploading pictures of my dog and I added some basic things to the pictures - the hat, cigar, etc. I didn't get into the hang of things until I started to muck around with pictures of my neighbourhood and I didn't really get time to find other image generators to play around with.

Some Doggy Pics

A Crappy PowerPoint Presentation!

A Crappy Presentation

Michael Lyne's photostream

Michael Lyne's photostream on Flickr.

Discovery Exercise - Using Flickr

Here's a random picture of Verona, Italy I found on Google. I then uploaded the URL to my Flickr account and added it to my album. I then connected Flickr with my blog account (which took a little while to figure out) and it was only a simple matter of clicking the share option to add the picture to the blog.

http://www.destination360.com/europe/italy/verona

First Exercise - Information Literacy Video

All right, to business then.

The video on information literacy was pretty well set out and easy to understand. Some of the main points included information literacy being a solution to data smog (where too much information can create a barrier in ourl lives) and allowing us to cope by giving us the skills to know when we need information. The DISCOVER method (Define, Inquire, Search, Collect, Organise, Verifying, Express and Reflect) comes into play here and is something useful to remember. Personally I do consider myself as information literate because I usually follow these steps when researching and evaluating information.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWzigkpR7yg

Again with the blogging

Yep, I'm back again. Seeing as how such a long time has passed since my previous post, I thought I might come back and check in. Thus far everything is fine.

.......

I'm hungry.

There are probably many thoughts I would like to express right now, some of them quite vulgar in nature, but I guess it would be quite inappropriate to publish them here since my teacher and fellow students would be reading this some time during the next couple of weeks. Thus I will attempt to keep the madness to a minimum.

On a final note, I hate my neighbour. Rich, snobby bitch.

Well I'm here

Yes, here I am, ready to begin the exciting journey of blogging.
Despite what some may think is an unfortunate title of my blog, I will not engage in mindless rants about every little thing that crosses my mind, nor will I embark on a brutal campaign to humiliate my enemies and close family...unless they deserve it.
No, loyal reader, this blog is created for the sole purpose of pursuing a project in a class I'm currently undertaking, so put away your scandal sheets and dirty minds and prepare to be enlightened and educated by my clumsy attempts to be a master blogger.

God help us all...if he exists.