The Republic of Thoronia

So, it’s finals week here in Thoronia, so we’ve been busy dotting our I’s and crossing our T’s in hopes of getting good scores on Presidential Fitness Exams. Since most of our creativity has been spent on these projects, I figured I’d point you around internet-town instead, and maybe you’ll see something you like:

Steve Gaynor, in his blog Fullbright, applies some of Roland Barthes’ (read the essay I’m thinking of here) idea’s to video games in his essay “Being There”. Oddly, he doesn’t actually mention Barthes, but it does bring some interesting arguments about authorship to the table. Worth reading if you want to picture new world with new video game design. It also brings up an interesting point in reference to Barthes’ idea’s, namely that his thoughts can be applied to any medium. I’ve heard of Barthes being taught in design classes, English, math, philosophy, history and so forth. “The Death of The Author” is one of the most applicable and easy to manipulate pieces of modern criticism, and Gaynor proves it (even if he doesn’t know it).

While we’re on the topic of video games, Brainy Gamer takes on immersion in regards to Fallout 3. He talks about this a few times in several other parts of his blog, all of them worth reading. I’m still waiting for more about his students’ take on Fallout 3 though, as I’m really curious as to how they’ll take it after playing through 1 and 2 His students played through FO 1 and 2, and their reactions to 3 can be found here (and yeah, you read that all right, as far as I can tell he teaches a Game class at a college level, but I’m still not too sure of the title of the course… either way, awesome, and something that I look forward to doing myself someday).

Oh screw it, here’s another video game story from the Escapist. Les Chappell’s article, “The Vintage Game Preservation Society” talks a bit about abandonware and copyright issues. But, more importantly has links to website’s that show how to get Syndicate and System Shock 2 running on OSX (or Windows XP for that matter).

Miles of tunnels beneath London are currently for sale. In what sounds like the beginning of a James Bond movie, London has set the price for its historic tunnels at $7.4 billion. Now, I realize that whoever purchases this will probably use it for good, what with its historical importance and all, but at the same time can’t help but wondering what type of evil, world-taking over plan might be able to be hatched from these tunnels. That being said, the Republic of Thoronia is currently in negotiations to take hold of the tunnels. If all goes well we will be moving in on the 1st of January.

Wall-E was released this last week on DVD, ha-za!

Black Friday has come and gone with “only” a trampling and a shooting. Pundits are pointing to the economy for blame on this, saying that this might not have ever happened if we weren’t in such rough economic times. I would argue that this might not have ever happened if we weren’t so driven by money, consumerism and “deals.” It doesn’t matter that we have no money, it matters that this thing I’ve never heard of until just now is HALF OFF (MSRP that is, it’s actually only $15 cheaper than the normal Wal-Mart Price, just FYI). The worst part is that many of these “deals” that happened on Black Friday were available on the internet, and many of them weren’t actually deals at all. Truth be told, American’s really want to risk their lives and karmic well-being in order to fight over Xbox’s and HDTV’s, which is amazingly sad. It’s always a bit disheartening this time of year when you get to actually see what drives people. I realize it’s the same old thing, the same thing said a million times before, and the same thing I’ll say next year… but every year I’m just blown away by how ludicrous our holiday ideal’s have become. Besides, everyone knows the best HDTV deals come after Christmas and before the Super Bowl. Duh.

Hey there,

Did you know that many of the Thoronian’s are based in Denver, Colorado? It’s true, and many of us are combining our forces to bring you comprehensive coverage of the Democratic National Convention.. from the outside of them. You see, we’re not politicians, Democrats, or, for that matter, important or passionate enough to get into the convention, so for us, well, we get to deal with the silliness that happens outside. Our poor little Denver, uprooted and moved to a National stage, while the rest of us are just trying to do our damn jobs. We’ve already gotten in contact with the folks over at Cycle Jerks, whom will be providing us with a few live tweets and photos (as well as other Bicycle Messengers who get to deal with the blunt sword of the police as well as “new” laws, rules and bike lanes), a Copy Center Manager (who travels to work via bicycle via the Cherry Creek path, i.e. right in the midst of where EVERYONE who gets their free bike for week will be), retail workers (OMG did Barrack Obama send someone to buy the new Coldplay for him! WTFDHDTNROTBA (Why the fuck didn’t he just download the new Republic of Thoronia Band album?), machinery delivery personel, and myself, a mild mannered Medical Records Clerk looking for lunch.

Running up to the events (August 25th-28th), we’ll cover some of the ways Denver has miraculously changed (new bike lanes appearing where car lanes used to be/still are, city streets being cleaned… for a massive amount of people to dirty again, new laws being enforced, security checkpoints, inside the Pepsi Center Parking lot and more).

Anyone else that works downtown or close to it should get in touch with me if you’re interested in eavesdropping on blogger’s Macbook’s, hotel conversations or sexy John Edwards extramarital meetings (Celebrity spotters need too!).

From here on out, in order to distinguish between things, the music created in Thoronia will hereby be called:

THE REPUBLIC OF THORONIA BAND.

Please update your iDevices to reflect this change. We’ve also added several new members to the musical project, including: Vlon (the magical drum playing Dragon), Chaestitty (the angel of harmonics) and Steel (the wicked guitar solo creating dwarf).

Thanks.

Happy 4th of July American’s! We don’t celebrate it here in Thoronia, but to those of you in America — may your country be good and strong and keep out of trouble for another year!

• If you’ve ever cheated on you husband or wife, ran over you child’s turtle, or accidently murdered you best friend’s parents, you might still be holding in your little secret, waiting for the perfect time to reveal the truth. Well, I have a proposition for you, tell them your secret right after they sneeze. People are so conditioned to hearing “bless you” or “gesssssooooooonnnnheit” after a sneeze they won’t even notice that you said, “I’msorryIsleptwithyoursister.” They’ll just reply, “thank you.”
• People build robot’s for a variety of reasons. I’m not sure why you’d build one to take all the fun out of air hockey though.
• I love it when companies try to copy Apple. It makes them look so stupid and pathetic — and ends up showcasing that the reason Mac’s are great is because of the extra amount of time they spend to ensure that their UI’s aren’t gaudy. Shit looks more comfortable in Minority Report than it does on a computer. Not that Microsoft has a track record for great UI’s.
• Seeing Wall-E was a great treat, and marks the first theatrical attendence since we were robbed while watching Sunshine. The movie was phenomenal, mostly due to the fact that Disney just didn’t seem to get it. But we did, the audience, oh yeah, we were in on the irony. The facade. The great visuals, endearing story, and simplistic, yet substantial argument against waste and laziness. Yeah, I got it. I’m as smart as a little kid. Oh, and the fact that there was hardly any dialougue for the first hour or so was pretty cool.
• Which reminds me of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris. My favorite movie. You should see it. Stat.
• We’re only eight days from the release of the new iPhone/firmware. I’m not entirely sure why people care more aout the hardware than the software — because it’s the software that has me excited. Don’t forget — the Repulic of Thoronia game is still in development. We are getting closer everyday and we’ll have concept shots up within the week — and hopefully screenshots within a month. Celebrate!
• If you haven’t heard of Wikileaks, or haven’t checked out the site, you really ought to. If nothing else it’s an interesting concept.

Via [Kotaku, Wired, Gizmodo, RoT, Consumerist]

He is sitting in the waiting room of Dr. Cynthia Mason’s plastic surgery clinic in Denver, Colorado, tapping his foot in eager anticipation. Clad in a tight cowboy shirt and even tighter jeans, 25 year-old Steven Muldue doesn’t appear to be the type of person that you’d likely expect to see in a plastic surgeons waiting room. With a sleek and slightly mussed haircut and an air of vintage vogue, Steven may be a better fit at a high fashion photo shoot or dingy nightclub – his anticipatory foot tapping seems to be to the tune of a straight 4/4 riff, his eyes glossed with a gleam of waiting for a day he thought would never come.

That’s because most thought it never would.

The waiting room has been filling with types like Muldue for the past six months, after a recent surgery by Dr. Mason gave local Radiohead enthusiast Michael Garafalo a treatment that made him look more like Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke. The treatment, which Dr. Mason perfected by slicing a small section of the eyelid, has been dubbed by local fanatics as the Yorke-cut. In the simplest terms, the $600 surgery gives fans a chance to recreate on their own person the trademark Thom Yorke Amblyopiatic left eye.

more…

via [Westword]