Like us on Facebook!

Prog and Roll Radio Show now has got a group and a page on facebook.
Our show airs on www.justincaseradio.com every Sunday between 20.00 - 22.00 UK time. We play a wide range of musical genres that fall under the categories of Prog, Prog Rock, Neo Prog, Symphonic Prog, Crossover Prog, Rock, Hard Rock and occasionally Metal and Progressive Metal. The music is good and the atmosphere is very friendly and relaxed. So if you are interested please like us on Facebook and join the group.
Related links:
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProgandRoll/
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Progandroll
Google+ Community: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/105848072613171743333?cfem=1

Gfreedom Team looks forward to your participation and company. Join in the fun!!!

Happy 2014

With hopes of 2014 kicking 2013 in the crotch, I wish you all a happy new year. May 2014 bring everyone a peaceful mind, happiness and health. Best wishes :)

www.coursera.org

Online Games: Literature, New Media, and Narrative

Mission accomplished!

I recently have come across this incredibly entertaining and instructive outlet of self-development: Coursera. It offers a wide-range of Universities from all around the world as well as some classes in multiple languages; But if you would like to give it a try English is a must since the best and the most courses are offered in English.

 

It works pretty easily, you go visit the page, sign up for the site and then choose the class you would like to roll and you are good to go. There is a wide range of courses, some of them requiring a specific previous knowledge, some of them, just for beginners. In any case if you wish to acquire a plain Coursera certificate it is completely free but if you would like to receive a completion certificate from the University of the class itself then you are supposed to pay for it.

Either way it is a great way for self development with or without a certificate. I have rolled for several classes, some of which I follow closely by doing the quizzes and the assignments and some of which I simply put on the watch list because although I do not care about the certificate I would like to follow them still in order to gain knowledge.

In all the courses you take you can either download the class videos in order to watch them on your tv later on or you can follow them on your computer.

I myself have just completed my first course in distinction track. As the sub-heading suggests it was of course about gaming but it beautifully and thoroughly evaluated games' narratives in various forms and how books and poems are remediated. I have to say; I enjoyed every minute of this course and learned so much on a topic which I already knew well. But this course helped me go to the roots of the specific genre of fantasy fiction. We have evaluated and discussed various works including a part of Spencer's Faerie Queene. 

But the class's main focus was on The Lord of the Rings. We have discussed and prepared assignments on how Tolkien's work was remediated into films and games. Since I had a fine grasp on the subject already, as many on the course also did, we were able to appreciate it on another level. 

If you have got time, please spare 15 minutes to watch the video I have created for an assignment. We were supposed to make our way to Weathertop and compare and contrast how the three medias (the book, the film, the online game) handled it in their own ways. We had to primarily focus on only one aspect and I had chosen to compare and contrast  the setting / mise en scène / gamespace. We were instructed not to include any videos from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings so I had to find other ways to illustrate the points I was making concerning the movie. I hope you will enjoy it.

In concluding this post I would like to say thanks to the main instructor of this course along with his TAs who made the class discussion videos so completely enjoyable. 

I will be coming back to coursera , that is, if I ever leave it at all...    

  

Concerning Freedom of Speech

Apparently there is none where I live...

Because when you try to speak up, when you try to stand up for what you believe is right you have to be prepared for tear gas, police assault and be subjected to unbelievable brutality. A story which ends in broken bones and hospitals. Some stories end in life-long effects of the various chemicals which are being used by the police which hides his helmet's numbers so that he cannot be traced or acted legally upon.

Apparently where I live even if you resist without harming anything or anyone ploys will be thrown in your way so that you will look like an anarchist rather than a civilian. Police will act a seriously lousy theatrical play for sold out media to shoot images which are far from the truth itself.

Apparently where I live the PM is so insecure, so mentally disturbed, so far from capable of running a cart let alone a country that instead of soothing the hundreds of thousands people, he provokes and polarizes them further almost in a manner as if he is deliberately making a way for a civil war. Apparently where I live the PM threatens his own people and his ministers go one step further to tweet: "We would drown you in a spoonful of water".

Apparently where I live police assaults and arrests lawyers by dragging them on the ground, by punching and beating them while they try to speak up in a most civilized manner.

Apparently where I live democracy, freedom of speech, human rights, in short everything that is civil and valid is a huge joke and our own government laughs out loud at the moment.

BUT....

He who laughs last, laughs longest.

And we are far from being done with speaking up. 

Letter of support from Roger Waters (Pink Floyd)

To all my friends in Turkey

I am with you! We are with you! You are so right to resist the forces of autocracy and repression. It doesn't matter who they are.
If I read the Internet right, in your case, you are resisting autocratic religious zealots.
Turkey is your country and we support you and yearn for your freedom, but also, you and your struggle are so important to the rest of the world.
Every time a man or woman or child takes to the streets, and stands up for human rights, for self determination, for democracy, for Mistress Liberty, the rest of the world is in debt.
We are not physically with you in the water cannon's fire, in the tear gas clouds, but we are with you in spirit.
We applaud your stand for we know it is not easy.
Your great country stands at the gateway between east and west. Constantinople is legend in the history of civilization. Your resistance today may well be a turning point between all of us and a return to the dark ages.

THERE IS NOTHING MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT YOU ARE DOING TODAY:

With love, and tears, and huge respect,

Roger Waters

You can find it here: https://www.facebook.com/eatps/posts/566018526754462

Google Glass

Use the tool or become a/the "Tool"?

 So I never thought that cyborgs would be people themselves and not the products of human creativity . Whats next? Matrix? New eye balls with internet/photo-camera-video/navigation integrated in them? Are we going to go ahead and know everything about any stranger on the street soon? 

I have been reading and watching a lot lately about this new technological product and I already dislike it to the point of yikes. 

Anthropologically speaking, tools have always been what set humans aside in this world. Our ability to use them and improve them led to our superiority. But I am not sure this included turning ourselves into gadgets and Google Glass my @$$ is the first step into this new world.

Human has always been dependent on tools. If it were not for the tools he could not have survived in the wild to begin with. But human until recently has not been dependent on technology. Technology has always been the means to entertainment and comfort; not survival. With the smart phones came the era of not memorizing any phone numbers. How many of us really remembers how many phone numbers? With the navigation came the loss of direction senses. Soon we will have no need to meet our friends face to face and will start living in contained white boxes because we will need no windows to look outside. Some might see this as a positive thing but I dont. And if you want to know why please read the short story "The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster since we seem to be going headfirst there.

No asteroids, no orbit fails, no ice-age, no global warming, no sun exploding into a bigillion bits and leaving us without light. We will destroy ourselves pretty well by losing our self-reliance to survive. Oh yes that will do it alright.

Human has been using his brains less and less for quite some time now but soon he will use it least when he is spoon-fed every information, even the most worthless ones. He will be a nice little shell of a body, drooling as he makes rounds and sees the world behind the layers of letter covered glasses. 

 

How different he will be than a robot is still up for grabs. 

Seriously, read "The Machine Stops".   

And one more thing: Google Glass looks stupid! Anyone who wears it looks idiotic! As idiotic as Inspector Gadget.

But that is its best feature when compared to the repercussions of a drooling humanity.
A humanity which is already drooling all over smartphones, computers and tablets. Sure why not hand him a pair of glasses too?

Stop the machine now!

 

Vanity; thy name is smart phone!

It doesn’t matter if you are a girl or a boy, it doesn’t matter where you are from, it doesn’t matter if you are clever or not. The new craze that has been going on for like the last 5 years now, is to self-take pictures of you posing in front of the most mundane places imaginable. Most of the profile pictures in places such as Facebook, google plus, tweeter and even avatars in various sites are those ridiculous images one tends to take of him/herself. On Facebook, if it is not the profile picture, you are sure to find at least an album of a smart phone originated faces and an arm extending to the invisible phone its invisible hand holds.

I suppose having a camera in your pocket has become such a trusted habit that it is meaningless to ask 500 strangers a day to take a picture of you for you to use as a profile picture or an avatar. Besides how ridiculous would you look if you asked someone in the public restroom to take a picture of you right there? I can hear the conversation.

You:  Hello, hi. Could you take a picture of me please?

Stranger: Here?

Y: Yes, yes here

S: Why?

Y: I look kind of pretty/handsome today.

You wouldn’t do that would you? Well the next time you have got a smart phone camera in your hand try playing out this scenario to yourself and abstain from doing it! The conversation with an actual stranger may not have taken place but from the photographs it is obvious that you had the conversation in your head with your inner stranger. Next time try saying it out loud. You will find that you sound absolutely ridiculous. 

If you do not wish to hear the voice of reason please then at least learn how to crop images so that you don’t look silly with that phone holding arm. Seriously…

Merry Christmas

I wish you all from the bottom of my heart a Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays everybody :)

P.S. In the picture are our dog Bailey as "Rudolf the reindeer" and our son Alex :)

21st of December

 According to the general belief and unease because of the Mayan calender, it is now a matter of hours: Doomsday, Apocalypse, The End of the World.

So many people taking refuge in two small towns one in Turkey the other in France. To escape the apocalypse? Seriously??

Lets say for the sake for the argument that the nation who could not predict their own genocide predicted this right...juuuuust for the sake of the argument. Do you really think you are going to escape something of that sort? No logic, no belief in religion, no common sense, no romanticism, no realism, not anything in the world could explain this silly way to escape something which supposedly is inevitable should it happen.Well maybe one thing could...Egoism...

Lets say that the end of the world is on 21st of December 2012. But according to which time zone? If it is according to the Mayans then it is not 21st of December for many countries in Far East...So what sense is there of 21st? Well lemme answer that for you...None whatsoever. Oh oh wait unless of course the apocalypse got wise of the time zones and is going to impend on each region at the exact time of the zone...gimme a break..

I just read some articles on how the little town, which according to the rumours is going to be saved, prepared apocalypse dinner menus, wines and even apocalypse desserts. So am I to understand while the world comes to an end according to their belief, they will be feasting and toasting to the World's Ending? Or will they be having strokes and heart attacks? I think they will go from food poisoning though...

Some claim that they do not believe it is the end of the world but it is the beginning of something big. That the world will adopt a more civilized way of apprehension in one day. And they believe These two towns will be the outlet of that big change...

We are expecting aliens any moment now, eyes on the sky people. Any undefined flying objects and we will be good to go.

Meanwhile the authorities and scientists keep saying that there is no evidence to assume that Mayans recorded the day as the end of the world. The calendar just stopped. So the doomsayers have got a perfect excuse for that too: "Oh they know but they are not telling it to people in order not to cause mass panic..."Well guess what genuises... you cannot keep this thing quiet because people who would find out about something this big would have been the firsts to arrive at those villages...or at least would have had some people they cared about to save, and like ripples in the pond, from one mouth to the other the news would have been officially out by now. So what else you got?

Has it ever occurred to anyone that maybe, just maybe The Mayans simply got bored of keeping track? Oh I can see it now...

"Hey wanna work on the calendar beginning with 2013 now?"
"Come on Dude! Thats like thousands of years from now. Besides I hear they have a new chick at the temple and it will be a spectacular sacrifice. Wanna go watch the priests rip her heart out?"
"Duuuuuuude now you are talking...Besides let the idiots in 2012 figure it out themselves. I am bored of this job..."

Or another scenario...
"Look look! There is a curious looking object on the sea."
"Dont bother me now man! I am about the finish the calendar and Im in the last year, 2012. When I am done we can go to the beach and check it out together..."
And those were his last words before the slaughter by the Spanish...

Gimme a break...

And hey if I am wrong what do you care? You will all be dead by then anyway.

You idiots who are in two specific tiny villages on mountain tops freezing their asses...You are included...







 

 

She-Ra Tattoo

I apologize for my absence in my blog. Well Tinny is back now and will write more on gaming, literature and cinema in no time. Next review will be on Tim Burton's Dark Shadows.

Till the review here is something more personal. I have been toying with the idea of getting a tattoo although I did not know what I would get, something that means something to me. At length I decided to go for She-ra, a cartoon character from back in 80ies, which I used to watch when I was a kid. I can safely say that She-ra and He-man characters are where it all began for me; the whole fantasy fiction obsession of mine comes from these two toons. When we were kids half of us were He-man and the other half were She-ra...Among the cartoons of 80ies my generation watched it like sick kids :)

So "For the Honour of Grey Skull" I present you with my 18cm-long-tattoo:

She-Ra Princess of Power Tattoo

Progressive Rock Radio

Hello everyone;
I have got a personal note. My husband and I will be on a Progressive Rock Radio presenting a show called: Prog & Roll. It is every Thursday between 9pm-11pm GMT. Tune in if you are a rock fan and if you like quality music. Thank you in advance :)

Delay due to an arm injury

Hello friends.

The doctor tells me that I cracked my elbow and severed the muscles of my right arm. Very prettily strapped (the doc took pity on me and did not put me in a cast) and ready to rock and roll, you can very well imagine that writing on computer in general is a little difficult for the time being. I might have to write a little less in the weeks to come but please stay tuned because I will still be posting reviews and videos and all that jazz :))

A little Artwork of the Characters I Play

The title should read hardly artwork but here it is:
I had made those sketches in likeness of my characters in the game Lord of the Rings Online and how they looked like in my head rather than in the pixel world of the game. They are nothing much but I like them all the same. 

 The one above is the character this blog is named after. She is Tinuvela Celeblindar (translation: silver bard) an elven minstrel. You may recognize the sketch from the profile picture. Although she is hardly my main any more, the years of using her name on the internet and in every game (even the good old D&D on paper ) has grown on me as an unbreakable habit. And so here she is.

This is Amberlinn Crimsonshield my true main. I love role playing with her as her character resembles me and so it is not very hard acting with her :) She is a guardian and she loves tanking but in role play circles she is a fervent adventurer and a mischief seeker.

Here you see Estelamir Arrnalindir (translation: HopeJewel Stormsinger) my elven Rune Keeper. Rune Keepers are actually not compatible with the lore of the Lord of the Rings but still they are quite the powerful DPS and effective healers to boot.

 And last but not least is a villainous burglar who in role play is my shameless assassin. She is immense fun to act with and as a class she aint bad at all. Ladies and Gentlemen I give you Laureina the shameless :)

A New Comer

  I am very new to blogging experience but since almost everybody around me is lately into the blogs I thought to myself: Why not? :)

  I intend to keep this blog as casual as possible. Mostly it will be about literature (ok maybe this did not sound that casual :P), movies, travels, games, maybe even some ramblings about daily events. So I hope you will bear with me :)

  Anyway lets keep this one short and start working on a first post. I hope you will enjoy my blog and cheers people :)