The Guild Season 3: Great things come in intense 5 minute packages

Time is against me but I am determined to blog regularly! What better to start with than  a snapshot review of The Guild Season 3?

This season of The Guild is high on character development and moves at a frenetic place. For those that aren't aware of The Guild, it's a great web series by Felicia Day about addicted gamers. See the end of the post for a link with more information.  For those that are already fans, here's my thoughts:

Codex is making progress. She still finds herself attracted to guys who seem "in control" (last time it was the stuntman, this time it's Fawkes) even if it's an unhealthy pattern for her.  Vork is stil Vork, but with added self awareness.  Tink and Bladezz have acknowledged their feelings; Zaboo continues to grow a backbone; Riley is paired off with an equally damaged individual; and Clara -- to me she's the worst of the addicts.  She really has to come around next season, esp with another kid on the way.  It's a disturbing character arc for a parent to watch!

I had to watch the season twice over after it was done because it moved SO quickly, in so many directions, with so many characters. The one liners and character development was intense and quick and the jokes just flew! At the same time, there are so many memorable moments, too many to list - Vork's car scenes will brilliant and stand out this season, Jeff is so funny. The arcs were all very ambitious this season and could easily have been twice as long with so many arcs to resolve, but you and the brilliant cast and crew pulled it all together.

In a nutshell: The Guild Season 3 is like a dark chocolate cake, rich, thick and nummy. The portions are small 5-7 nuggets, so be sure to eat slowly and savor!

GREAT JOB TO CAST AND CREW!

In case you haven't seen the Guild Season 3, look no further than here: http://www.watchtheguild.com

Happy Thanksgiving,

Chris

Being a guy, especially being a dad, in 2009- some resources

http://www.dadlabs.com

http://www.artofmanliness.com

and in a more popculturey way

http://www.askmen.com

The Guild - making understanding gaming addiction accessible to all

Felicia Day knows what it is like to be addicted to video games. Indeed, she has talked about her World of Warcraft addiction quite openly.

Her web series The Guild  (www.watchtheguild.com)has given gamers a rallying point of readily identifiable personalities and mannerisms that they know from their own lifestyle, and shows all the different dramas that can take place when people interact in a fantasy world, and then interact offline.

However, this sort of satire is not quite new.  Something Awful had several running bits about addicted gamers meeting in restaurants and stumbling through menus and satiracal articles about the game itself such as this one that ran in 2005 about "How to properly enjoy World of Warcraft":

If you follow the link, and if you are not a gamer, you will not be able to make sense of what is being said, very likely, since it's all written in gamer lingo.  The jokes in the Something Awful article will only make sense to people who have actually played the game.

This is where Felicia excels.  She understands the gamer lingo, but has learned to make the language and characters that inhabit virtual worlds both hopelessly addicted to video games, but also accessible and understandable by a mainstream audience.  Her success in doing this has not only created a web series appreciated by fans of video games, but by fans of high quality comedy and satire as well.

By opening the door into the gamer psyche, Day has created another, unexploited opportunity.  I think every psychotherapist and psychologist dealing with someone who has a gaming addiction should see The Guild, especially if they have not played video games themselves and have patients that are struggling with a gaming addiction, as Day's show nails many of the common psychological problems and personalities that are attracted to gaming. In The Guild, everyone is trying to escape from something.

Codex - twenty something, social anxiety disorder, turns to gaming to escape her problems and stop dealing with other people. Yet in the series, she's forced to do nothing but.

Zaboo - Turns to gaming to get away from a controlling, overbearing mother, and becomes obsesed with Codex, the object of his affection and (unwilling?) liberator. And with the mother out of the picture, and Codex rejecting him, Zaboo reverts to being another woman's slave (Riley), a donimatrix.  Relationships forged via online gaming can often be extreme like this, because the anonymity of the Internet can often bring out more raw aspects of a person than a relationship forged through other more realistic means can.

Vork - amusingly accesible eccentricity, Vork's situation is that he views the world in a very unique way.  These people often turn to gaming since the rest of the world doesn't seem to understand them or even try.

Clara - Clara is running from her marriage and children, she wants to be the pole dancer and cheerleader for the rest of her life and avoid responsibility.  When her husband confronts her, she does what many addicts do, and tries to pull him in with her into her addiction.

Tinkerballa - Denial is more than a river in Egypt - Tink's issue is she uses the other Guild members to raise her own self esteem by eliciting a manic superiority complex and being a bitch. This plays out to the point where in Season 3 she joins an entirely different Guild just so she can look down on her former teammates.

Bladezz - Acts out online and is an obnoxious teenager, asserting himself sexually and claiming his own space; while at home he continues to be treated like a child.  Adolescents often turn to gaming to feel independent and more adult -- BLadezz is no exception.

As you can see, the characters of the Guild convey real life issues that millions of gamers and non-gamers alike can learn to understand.

Given all that, the series is a silly, hillarious satire -- but as in all truly well written comedy -- there are grains of truth and lessons to be learned through the satirical mirror Day provides.  Beware the trappings of gaming addiction!

CJF

To all the computers I've loved before...

Ah, the operating systems of the past.  Here's the computers I've owned, along with a few memories of each.

Commodore VIC20. My first computer exposure, in a summer camp.  Wrote choose your own adventures in BASIC.

Commodore 64/128 - First computer I owned.  Had to put ice packs on the power supply. Very slow modem,  lots of hacked software.  Wrote games using Gary Kitchen's Game maker. Wrote choose your own adventures with ASCII art in Commodore Basic. Spent a lot of time trying to figure out Super Huey flight simulator.

Apple II E - Early nineteen eighties at St. Anthony's Pewaukee.  Enjoyed such applications as The Print Shop, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, Turtle, a Typing Tutor, and Oregon Trail.  Captured Carmen, of course.

Apple II GS and Imagewriter - Late nineteen eighties.  That was the first color printer I'd been exposed to.  It was sleek though and used a lot of ink.  The II GS also had color which made it seem modern. But I never owned one.

Apple Mac Performa - Mid-nineteen nineties.  College music writing phase. Fell in love with Opcode Studio Vision. Realized I had to own a Mac some day to write music.  Wrote two albums worth of songs before being forcibly kicked out of lab by snotty music majors (I was "only" a music minor.)  Got lots of downloads for my stuff from mp3.com, when there was an mp3.com.

At work got first exposure to Sun Solaris and UNIX at ExecPC in New Berlin. Had a basic Win98 machine there that i customized and broke often.

AMD Athlon K6 PC - ah yes. This saw me install every alpha and beta of Windows 98.   I was nuts.  I think I installed every build released until the final one. I felt so ahead of my time.

P3 667 mhz - Wow, P3 speeds. still windows.  Stuck with 98 SE for a long time.  Used Trumpet Winsock to get into the Internet until it was translated into Windows Sockets. Wow. That was a long time ago.  Wrote the NDL page.

iMacs running OS 8.6-9.0 - used them to author footspot.com in an obscure scripting language called SmithMicro WebDNA.  Realized I hated Mac OS Classic for business related tasks. Stopped using Macs out of disgust with the "Chooser", memory leaks and a whole bevy of other issues - but got hired to use Filemaker for database administration go figure.

Got on the job MCSE training for certification. Became a bit of a Windows nazi for a brief period of time with Windows 2003 server.  Bet people who know me now wouldn't believe that..but it's true.

P4 3.2 ghz Got a hot and fast but not "extreme" P4 box home built. Ran Windows 2000, XP, and now my wife runs Vista on it (soon to be Windows 7.) Used it for everything, including music composition with Cakewalk Pro, writing websites with Macromedia dreamweaver, etc. If I wanted to play with Windows 2k server or Windows 2003 server  or SQL 2000/2005 I just went to work. :)

Macbook - 2006 - Got my wife a Mac for graphic design reasons, it ran Tiger.Promptly fell for Unix/MacOS again.

Macbook Pro early 2008  Core 2 Duo - My current and primary computer.  Logic Express works JUST LIKE Vision for writing music, I love it.  Use the computer for everything, except Outlook and some work-related apps. Digging around in Darwin and Unix, but don't shy away from my Windows VM either.

Liking Windows 7; I may switch to a netbook next generation...we'll see..but they say, once you go Mac...

What happens when you surround yourself with greatness - defining success

It's been a long time since I've been creative on the Internet. It's been a long road rebuilding my life and career, growing, organizing, coalessing, digesting.  But, the time has come to give back again.  Edgar Garcia, Felicia Day and the Guild, online friends, real life friends in church and  all the great people I work with at CDW, my family, they all have taught me some very important lessons about being a creative professional and what it takes to be a success. The formula is simple, but, like doing a workout, difficult at the same time.

First of all, what success is not:
* Being famous
* Being rich

Success is:
* Becoming more and more proficient at what you love
* Expressing yourself through your art consistently and effectively
* Blood, sweat and tears
* Self discipline
* Organization
* Surrounding yourself with good people that pull you up and don't drag you down
* Fighting and overcoming your own personal demons
* Always, always upping your game
* Humility and a positive attitude
* Giving as much as you take
* Having fun
* Forgiving yourself when you fall down and having the courage to face your failings and correct them
* Shielded vulnerability.  When you create something, you put yourself out there.  Having healthy boundries lets you protect your core but at the same time be exposed.  Good friends and a healthy inside/outside boundary prevents drama and enhances beauty of the end product, like granulating sugar or preparing a great meal from raw ingredients.
* The ability to take constructive criticism and reject destructive criticism and the ability to discern the difference.

This, along with a good deal of love, both for yourself and others, lead to success. I get this now. It's the reason Felicia Day signs all of her emails 'XOXO Felicia' and why Edgar Garcia wants everyone to share in his Year of the Edgar.  It's a healthy, outgoing love to be shared with anyone who wants a piece of it -- the type you'd find on an Olympic sports team or in the best work environments. It's a modus oparandi, and it can change your life.

Thoughts on the future of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse

I've been thinking about this for quite a long time, and I am finally going to say it: Fox is treating Dollhouse much like they treated Eliza Dushku's previous television outing, Tru Calling - but unlike Tru Calling, I believe that it will be comissioned for a full second season to great fanfare unlike its predecessor.

The difference? Joss Whedon.

I will elaborate as time permits.

Why people might not "get" Dollhouse at first

In Dollhouse, Joss Whedon attempts to balance his cerebral takes on investigating what human personality laid up against a classic backdrop.

A lot of the critics of the Dollhouse premiere, and of the three episodes available to the press, don't understand something, and here is what that something is.

Anyone can write a show about vampires.  Anyone can write a show about people that are hired for missions (aka Charlie's Angels)..they are missing the point.

My AP English Teacher Mrs Brown once told me, there are no such things as new ideas, only old ideas combined in new ways. Like paints on a canvas, they can be mixed in different, new and challenging ways but the paints are still the same colors.

My point is this, anyone can write a vampire show, anyone can write a sci-fi show, but what Joss does, how he writes, how he weaves an intricate universe that asks the important questions philosophically about who people are and what motivates us and what is the meaning of life, that's the deep stuff that keeps people coming back.

Even Dr. Horrible used a ton of musical conventions, with a complete understanding of what they are, before breaking them.

I learned while studying music (and engineering, for that matter) that the best way to know how to break the rules is to know what the rules are and then DELIBERATELY break them. 

This first episode of Dollhouse was an establishing shot. It was what the network wanted, and now the critics are calling it conventional. I have a feeling they are just being idiots, because Joss always establishes conventions before he breaks them in new and unexpected ways.

Now that Joss has created the frame for his crayon drawing in black and white, I look forward to where he puts the colors -- both inside and outside the lines.

Chris

It's all about the people - Valentine's wishes

I have a confession.  For me, Whedonverse and The Guild are only about 30-50% about the shows themselves, and the same goes for Dr Who.  In reality, it's all about the people. I'm serious, it's about the people. People are my books, which is why my Goodreads.com is so short. I love to get to know people, and to understand them.  Ironically, I am trying hard not to do what Joss Whedon says in the Commentary musical, and "pick pick pick them apart" -- because -- as he aptly points out, if you spend too much time analyzing, you miss the story!

So since so many of my Internet friends have been kind enough to give me shout outs I am going to return the favor and just rant a bit about the awesome people I've gotten to know as a result of my fandom.

@geekyfanboy - Kenny is the behind the scenes guy for The Guild and has a job at Discovery Channel as a producer.  He works probably 80 hours a week making "output", which means generating audio and video production materials for television and the net.  The Guild is his first foray into this crazy world of the Net.  We share Star Trek and Dr Who fandom -- it's hillarious that he's friends with Shawn Lyon, who runs Outpost Gallifrey, and the Doctor Who forum.  Kenny is a sensitive and interesting guy who is really passionate about television and about his fandoms.  He runs the largest Star Trek podcast on the net, the Ready Room, and is starting up a new podcast for The Guild.  

@egspoony - Edgar Garcia.  THE Edgar.  Young, motivated web designer and IT guy, always good at making friends and keeping spirits high. 

@jennipowell  - LonelyGirl15 refugee, PA on the Guild, and independent filmmaker.  Jenni takes all the big risks and is willing to do what she has to do to get by in the crazy world that is Los Angeles.  She has a winner's attitude and gives me an insight into the whole "what might have been" if I had moved to LA when I was younger and went for it. She also is hot and has red hair.

@crixlee - gamer girl, and bringer of good times.  If I had a DJ'd party, Crix would be the DJ.  If I had to have a girl over he bring the fun out, she'd be near the top of the list. End of story. She is also hot.

@worldofhiglet - an online wordsmith who is an excellent communicator and good with people, also very passionate about science fiction. Her communication skills are top notch and she is really good at keeping up her blog and writing contributions to many fan sites.  Eventually she will rule the world.

@feliciaday - There's more webpages about Felicia Day online than any human being could take the time to read.  Personally though, Felicia has been a bit of a muse, helping me to get through my personal creative barriers and not be afraid to create again.  Interviewing her was one of my highlights of 2008 -- not just because I was meeting her -- but because I was having the balls to run a panel at a con and interview a Hollywood professional who I admired.  Her connection to her fans is personal, sincere, and real, and so is she.  She's a talented writer, she's also hot and has red hair. 

@maxsummers - Everyone's favorite, witty, sensitive, fun Brazillian. I eat a kit kat in your honor.

Soma, Matthew, Dena, Nathan Tomato, Jeff Carlisle, and so many other Guildies keep spirits high during long shifts and days of watching Joss.  

My wife Jamie for putting up with all my weirdness and working hard at home and to make our personal life better.

Real life friends and coworkers for always showing me possibilities of how to make my life better.

And of course, my family and extended family for always being there for me and teaching me how to care deeply and sincerely.

Happy Valentine's everybody.

Chris