Category Archives: fieldnotes

20 minutes in transylvania

Posted on by November 25, 2016
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  On his fully equipped “Monster” hoverboard Mike, the teenage werewolf, speeds through “Transylvania,” the October 2016 version of “Subway Surfers”. Under a full moon von Frankenstein’s creature is close on his heels while Mike collects the last remaining ghosts of the weekly hunt. This Let’s Play video is meant as a showcase of version 1.62.1 … a bit spiced up with material matching the theme and ambience. Namely scenes from the movie “Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man” (1943), the first of a series of so-called “ensemble” monster films doing crossovers by combining characters from several film series. The movie … Continue reading →

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grand theft time

Posted on by April 16, 2015
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Unfortunately I got a daytime job. That’s unfortunate—in a way, granted—’cause ‘Grand Theft Auto V’ (GTA5) for PC finally hit the storeshelves yesterday. Just returned from the store a minute ago and unpacked the thing. As you can see above till now Rockstar has done everything right. You get a fine box and not some cheap plastic DVD sleeve from the dumpster, as usual. And of course there’s the printed map of Los Santos … and seven, yes seven DVDs. I’ll shove the first one into my machine in a second. Around the web since yesterday there are horrible stories … Continue reading →

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why turning around?

Posted on by January 21, 2013
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zeph’s pop culture quiz #56 What’s happening in this scene? Why are the two kids turning around?     Simply leave a comment with your educated guess—you can ask for additional hints, too. [Leaving a comment is easy; just click the ‘Leave a comment’ at the end of the post and fill in the form. If it’s the first time you post a comment, it will be held for moderation. But I am constantly checking, and once I’ve approved a comment, your next ones won’t be held, but published immediately by the system.] … Continue reading →

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the quantified body

Posted on by October 14, 2012
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Whenever I hear or read about the ↑quantified self—a lifestyle obviously deeply influenced by the heritage of ↵cybernetics—I am reminded of conversations I led and overheard while I still was visiting the gym regularly, three times a week. Already when just eavesdropping I was amazed by the topics the real bodybuilders talked about. The weights lifted almost aren’t a topic at all—with the exception when they spot somebody they care about using too heavy weights. This not only has negative training effects but greatly heightens the risk of injuries, too. Then, somewhat related to the former, there is the topic … Continue reading →

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archæology of steampunk

Posted on by October 3, 2012
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Just a minute ago I pre-ordered ‘Steampunk: kurz & geek’ (Jahnke & Rauchfuß 2012) after I had read ↑Kueperpunk’s review (he has a reviewer’s copy). It reminded me of Ekaterina Sedia’s introduction (Sedia 2012) in ‘The Mammoth Book of Steampunk’ (Wallace 2012): With the recent release of ↑The Steampunk Bible (ed. Jeff VanderMeer and SJ Chambers [2011]), it seems that steampunk as a genre finally came into its own and has grown enough to demand its own compendium, summarizing various parts of this remarkably protean movement, and pointing out interesting things happening in its DIY culture, cosplay, film, literature and … Continue reading →

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last riddler challenges

Posted on by April 21, 2012
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Just yesterday I had a longer conversation [not online, but face to face, beer by beer] with a doctoral student of mine ↑who does deeply immersed fieldwork around and within the ‘StarCraft II’ (SC2 | Blizzard Entertainment 2010) pro-gamer scene. Matchingly enough the day before yesterday I reread ↓Bearman 2008 and ↵watched ‘King of Kong’ (Gordon 2007) and ‘Chasing Ghosts’ (Ruchti 2007), wondering at the lengths high-end arcade-gamers go. Well, he told me about the lengths the SC2-specialists go, especially in terms of analysis of the game, its patches, actual matches, etc. Up to writing book-lengths compendiums. After enough grinning … Continue reading →

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desert mecha

Posted on by February 27, 2012
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The above 3D-scene, called ‘Desert Lion,’ was done by Andrew March in 2004 and since then sat on my HDD. Andrew used the model of the Cougar ↑mech (which at least dates back to 2002, but you can still ↓download it) by Pawel Czarnecki—until today a legend within the scene—, the model of the ↑AMX-30 tank by Deespona, and nicely composed and rendered them within his own scene. Obviously the piece of art was created under the impression of the ↑Iraq War.     The picture immediately rung a chord within me back then, but somehow I never came around … Continue reading →

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