CogBlogged from ‘September, 2011’

cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by bitzi ☂ ion-bogdan dumitrescu Six are the vignettes that make up David Mitchell’s time spanning novel, Cloud Atlas. Six stories that are loosely connected over six time periods, past and future. Six stories that play themselves out partly in first halves, then sequentially reverse themselves backward to completion. Alas, sick I am (a cold) in finishing this book, attempting to unravel it. Despite this, I am mesmerized by the journey this book put me upon. The start was rocky, and many of the chapters took some slow starts to get the switch in narrative style- from the formal sprawling of 19th century Adam Ewing’s journal to the inquisitor Q&A of Sonmi-451 to the pidgen voice of post apocalyptic Zachary of Sloosha’s Crossin’. Loose connections through 6 devices of communication – Ewing’s journal, Frobish’s song, Cavendish’s movie, Lousia Rey’s journalism, Sonmi’s [...]

Found via the ever bag of gold of brainpickings comes the Holstee Manifesto: No, I am trying to dl all of it. Life is short. Life your dream and share your passion. Add- Make some (MacGuffin Art) Damnit!

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Number of days on the road: 84 Miles Driven: 9569 Number of States/Provinces driven in: 17 Number of US/Canadian Border Crossings: 2 Money spent on gas: $2553 Amount of time required to drive 47 miles from Falls Church VA to Baltimore DC: 2.5 hours (frustration: infinite) Photos posted: 2025 (that is an average of 22.2 per day) Number of nights in hotels/B&B: 9 Number of nights camping: 16 Number of “real” New York lunches (ones that last over 2 hours with conversation): 1 (thanks Susan!) cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Number of re-visits to key places in my past: 4 (old neighborhood on Campfield Road; DeerPark Tavern and Geology Department at University of Delaware; Location where Dominoe Disappeared; Camp Glyndon) Number of new forms of transportation: 4 (paddleboard, Jet Ski, 4 wheel Quad, tractor) Best [...]

MacGuffins can happen in real life. The world as we know it would be turned inside out. Countries overthrown. Entire cultural history tossed aside. Dogs and cats sleeping together. Cubs wining the Series. Stuff like that.

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog “Excited” is an understatement for how I felt about having the opportunity today to be a guest at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University — like I said today, this was like a baseball fan getting to go to Cooperstown. Just think of Zotero, Omeka, THATCamp, SyllabusFinder — and these are just a few of the projects under the CHNM umbrella. But it also meant I got to hang out with Patrick Murray-John, who I’d not seen since my 2007 visit to Mary Washington, and the chance to meet Dan Cohen, the wizard behind CHNM. I had also opted to broadcast the session live on ds106 radio, via the Papaya app on the iPhone; I neglected to consider recording it too, but luckily Giulia Forsythe was abe to grab at least the first 25 minutes [...]

I was trapped in my car all afternoon burning with desire to feed the MacGuffin Alt Movie Syndrome. Seeing Michael Branson Smith’s “A Few Not Son Good Men” it struck my the same scene could be MacGuffin’ed the other way. For me, it better fits my loathing of Tom Cruise. And the community service idea connects me to the NoiseProf’s most awesome riff of Shawshanked. So who is going to be the first do do an Animated GIF MacGuffin?

I got MacGuffin fever- it might be this ds106 semester’s animated gif? We all know that collaboration is the way to go, right? We all hold hands, go off to northern canada, and sing tra-la-la-la? ;-) It’s 2011, a ds106 Odyssey! BA….. DA….. DA DA

Been thinking of movies to flip the McGuffin on for this week’s hot ds106 assignment, Messing with the McGuffin: Wikipedia defines the MacGuffin as “a plot element that catches the viewers’ attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction.” For this assignment forever change the plot of a movie, tv show, etc. by changing a single line of dialogue. Put this new line of dialogue below a screen-cap of the moment in the movie you’re changing. So if Luke had just slept off the binge, he would have awoken a happy well adjusted man, not eaten 50 eggs, etc… and we’d have a dull-ass movie. What we have here is a failure to MacGuffin-ate.

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog I landed today in Falls Church, VA, at the invite of George Brett, a long time internet colleague who I finally met for the first time in February at the EDUCAUSE ELI conference. He urged me to visit him, so I did– I am. He and his wife and daughter offered me the same open warm hospitality I have gotten everywhere on the trip. After a fabulous pork medallion dinner, I got to show off the StoryBox but the real prize was having George do his first ds106 radio show. He had fun with his old time music he played via his iPad: cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog He was part of the internet scene going back to the early 1980s, and was around many of the early wizards — as he quipped: I shoveled [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog You can go back to a place, but you can’t go back. Nor should you want to. But maybe you want to. On my trip around the East Coast, I have visited bits of my past, e.g where I did my undergrad years (or where I did my undergraduate fun). On plotting today’s odyssey leg from southeastern Pennsylvania to Washington, I noticed my route went very near Thurmont Maryland. Which is near Cactoctin Mountain Park. Which us where, almost exactly 25 tears ago (well in 3 weeks), is the place I lost Dominoe in the woods, and she found me.