As a member of the OL Collective, you no doubt traipse about in generated worlds. While the best of these worlds are well-distinguished from one another, they can be sliced into distinct categories. There are Utopian worlds, worlds filled with magic, worlds filled with superheroes, and other worlds filled with dragons. In fact, some are Utopian worlds filled with superheroes wielding magic and thrashing dragons. Mix-and-match. Whatever. And so on.

However, I reckon that we all have our favorite slice of the generated-world nonsense that comes from enjoying the arts and farts. So I’ll ask you gals and guys: what is your favorite kind of fictional world? And does it come from a specific source?

Me? My favorite are there them cyberpunk dystopias, specifically that of Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon and its sequels.

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Welcome to E3 vs PR – A blog series on the Gaming Industry’s Most Important Season from a Communications Perspective.

You’re having a bad PR week with the media if you’re one of the following two clients:

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, following allegations of crack-cocaine use caught on tape, or, Microsoft’s Games and Entertainment Division, following the incredibly confused and poorly communicated debut of their next generation platform, the Xbox One (XBO).

I’m a gamer. Have been since I was 3. I’m also an upcoming communications and PR graduate. The lens I’m looking at this industry through is changing radically, but the last week has been bad enough that the popular opinion is all on the same side.

We all threw our hands up at Microsoft’s lack of a coherent set of key messages throughout the eight days since launch. Everything we’ve been taught not to do, they’re doing.

While Microsoft didn’t match Ford and (allegedly) break the law over the last poorly-planned eight days of the XBO PR launch, you’d definitely call most of their actions criminal, from a communications perspective.

A game and entertainment console ‘reveal’ is one of the most critical and risk-laden PR events that can take place in the interactive entertainment industry. A console, like the XBO’s predecessor, the XBox 360, typically lives on the market for a healthy five to six years. That’s before being relegated to second-tier status upon its successor’s launch for the next three or four years.

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Welcome to the Monday Morning Commute! This is the weekly entertainment call-to-arms hosted at OL! First, I’m going to share a short piece of fiction I’ve just unearthed from my brain with a caffeine-excavator. Then, I’m going to detail some of the ideas I have for entertaining myself into the weekend. Lastly, the final step of the MMC is for you to hit up the comments section and share party-agenda for the week!

This is pop-culture show-and-tell at its most unabashedly passionate.

Take a rip of your favorite beverage and go for it!

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[face of a franchise presents two individuals that’ve fulfilled the same role. your task — choose the better of the two and defend your choice in the kal-if-fee that is the comments section]

It’s time for us to get emotional about science-fiction’s most beloved logician.

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I don’t mean to alarm anyone here, but sometimes I can sound like an old man bitching about how things today stink.  Usually I am aware of my behavior and I ham it up a little.  I like sounding like a bitter old man.  However today’s Opinions Vary is a very different beast.  I actually and truly believe the following.
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I prefer practical special effects over digital effects.
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Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby‘s been in theaters for a couple weeks, and it is a truly divisive talking-point amongst moviegoers. While some appreciate the sleek visuals and pervading splendor, others believe that the film isn’t grounded enough to give a fair representation of the novel. No matter which camp you find yourself in, chances’re good that if you’ve read the book or seen the movie you’ve spent some time slinging ideas about.

Such is my situation.

Allow me to be forthright – I believe that The Great Gatsby is an absolutely perfect novel. I’ve spent countless hours reading, discussing, and writing about Fitzgerald’s magnum opus, and yet I still find myself stumbling into new terrain. Of course, whenever I think I’ve find a rock worth turning over, I make a point to shout at anyone who’ll listen.

A couple years ago I posted Nick Carra-Gay?, an exploration of the possibility that the novel’s narrator is gay. Whether or not you go for the theory, it generated some great conversation.

In the hopes of generating similar discussions, I’ve taken a grad school paper I’ve just completed and rearranged it for the OL audience. Give it a read and then hit up the comments section to share your thoughts. I’m not sure if my argument’s got legs to stand on, but at the very least it’s evocative.

After all, the idea at hand is that Jay Gatsby is actually a black guy.

I now present – The Great Blacksby – The Literary Hero You Never Noticed.

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Welcome to Monday Morning Commute. This is the column where we all slow down enough to talk about what we’re enjoying on a given week. Me? How am I doing? Why, how kind of you to ask! As you may or may not know, I work on a college campus. And this week I’m lucky enough to enjoy the week off between Spring and Summer semesters. I’m going to spend the next seven days trying to figure out what that fuck I’m going to be teaching in a month, watching The Most Ill of all Bro Movies, and throwing a party at my new apartment. It’ll be a good week.

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A lifetime playing video games hasn’t just taught me that I’m a fat, slovenly dork who prefers his own company and staying indoors. Far from it: games have allowed me to come to all sort of bizarre, self-therapy conclusions. See for yourself.

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Welcome to Monday Morning Commute – the weekly tribal meeting where those upon the SpaceShip Omega share what they’re interested in during the next seven or so days. The exercise is designed to pollinate each other’s lives with both shared and new arts and farts, in an effort to mitigate the tediousness that Existence can become.

Time is short, let’s tug on one another.

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It’s getting tougher to piece these recaps together in recent weeks on account of a school schedule that’s getting busier than ever; but it’s a labor of love, and a true pleasure to get to reflect on some of the most memorable television being made. Apologies to the OL community for the tardiness! Hopefully, this look back on ‘The Climb’ will whet your appetite for the next Thrones ep we’ll have coming this Sunday.

The episode this week was a strange mishmash of plodding and excellence. Let’s start with the rotten side of the apple.

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