Assignment #9

In a way I would say that yes I am a gamer. I’m not the kind of person who subscribes to gaming magazines and logs on to gaming sites to read the latest news, but I play my Xbox 360 and if I’m bored I play BrickBuster on my cell phone. Maybe in some people’s eyes I’m not a gamer, but I see a non-gamer as somebody who doesn’t use any form of electronic gaming.
I would say that I don’t necessarily fit the mold, because I am not an avid gamer. I only play my Xbox 360 occasionally and when I do play I am not playing for hours on end. I typically play sports games and once in a while I’ll play a War/Shooting game. I think that if I was an avid gamer I would have more of a selection with the games I would play and I would certainly play them more often, but I don’t have the time and I choose not to, because I believe there are more important things to be doing.
My favorite type of game would have to be the EA Sports NCAA Football and Madden NFL Football. Seeing that football is my favorite sport it is fitting that my favorite video games would involve football. Every year I buy the latest version, NCAA first then NFL. I like to play both of these, because to me it’s fun. I like playing with UB and the Buffalo Bills, because they are my favorite teams and I like to see how well I can do with playing with them. I also enjoy playing EA Sports NCAA March Madness, because next to football, college basketball is my other favorite sport. Occasionally I will play war related games, because I feel they are more challenging and I like to see if I can beat them, but other than that I like to stick to the football and basketball games.
When I play my games, I notice that for the college football there is product placement, but I feel that without it, the game wouldn’t seem as realistic. There are some places in the game where there are fake ads and to me it looks stupid, because they had to make up an ad to put on the game inside the stadium. I think that real ads make the game look better. The spikes the players use have Nike and Adidas logos on them and the football and jerseys have logos on them too. These things do not go unnoticed, because I am not even looking for them and I see them. I know in real life hockey there are ads on the boards and if a video game didn’t have them it would look kind of ridiculous. Advertisements are all over, so why wouldn’t they be in video games too? I think that the ratings system is a good idea, because it allows parents to see what a game consists of. I just don’t understand why everybody makes a big deal about it. If a parent has a problem with a video game then they should just not allow their child to play it. The video game companies can produce whatever video games they want. If there is a demand for violent video games then that’s what they are going to produce, because they want to make money. If these parents would just keep an eye on their child and restrict what games they play then it shouldn’t bother them. I believe they are just games, but at the same time I like them to be more realistic. I like seeing the ads in games, because that’s how it is in real life. I do not think I spend too much time gaming, because I know that there are more important things to be doing. I like to play when I have nothing else to do and when I want to play. I only play occasionally, so I don’t feel I spend all of my time playing games.

Assignment #8

For my blog this week I chose to watch the internet series called Art of the Drink. This is a series about bartending and making different drinks. Every week the bartender introduces a new drink and he makes it once going through each step then he has his female assistant make the same drink again. I chose this because I occasionally bartend at HSBC Arena and I thought it would be helpful for work and also for leisure.
Compared to normal television I think that it is very similar. Because this is a show that teaches you how to make drinks, I compared it to a show on the Food network where they teach you a new meal and go through the steps of how to make it. The only thing that would be different between the two types of shows would be length. For this bartending show, the episodes were only about ten minutes long where some food shows are a half hour to an hour long. When I went to the site and tried to watch the videos, I learned that I needed to subscribe to the Art of the Drink podcast, so instead I searched for it on YouTube and right away tons of episodes came up. So, it wasn’t very hard to find and if you don’t feel like downloading the podcast for your iPod, you can just go to YouTube and watch the episodes. I feel that this series can be very interactive, if you have all of these liquors and juices and the other supplies at hand, you can make the drink along with the show, so you can actually make it while learning from the show. I think that this type of series is more enjoyable than some television series, because you learn something that you want to learn and not some nonsense that you will never use in your life. If you intend on being a bartender or enjoy making new types of mixed drinks, this is a good series to watch.
The Quarterlife TV launch on NBC was extremely unsuccessful. The series only lasted one episode, because of the poor ratings it received after its premier. It received lower ratings for teen demographic and general household than the democratic presidential debate did on MSNBC. After being cancelled on NBC they decided to air the remaining episodes on Bravo. It also aired on the E! channel in Canada and due to its poor ratings, the E! website in Canada removed all reference of the show off of their website since it was cancelled.

Assignment #7

In the past twenty-four hours music has definitely played a role in my interactions with other people. I know that whenever I hear a song that I know the words to, I always have to sing it. I work at HSBC Arena for the Sabres games, so last night during the intermissions and timeouts when they played a song that I know, I would sing it. When my friends at work hear the song and hear me singing they also start singing and we have fun and it makes us get through the night. When I am driving down the street and I can hear someone else’s music and bass, that really bothers me. I am not impressed by how sweet someone’s system sounds, I could care less actually. Yesterday I was in my car with my windows up, window defrosters on and my stereo on and I could still hear someone else’s music. It makes me mad that I can’t enjoy my music without the interruption of someone else. Usually I listen to my iPod in my car, but my car was being fixed yesterday, so I was using my dad’s car and didn’t have access to listening to my iPod and only had the radio. This made me aggravated while driving to school and work, because with my iPod I can listen to whatever song I want to, but with the radio I have no choice. Whenever I hear a song I don’t like I have to change the station and sometimes there are commercials and I can’t hear any music. These rides would have been much more enjoyable is I would’ve been able to listen to my iPod. Also, whenever I hear certain songs, they might remind me of an event that took place in my life where that song was played or something I watched where I heard that song. Whenever I hear the song Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond, I think of the movie Fever Pitch and whenever I hear the song Shipping Up to Boston by Dropkick Murphy’s, I think of the movie The Departed and when the Sabres have a power play at home Sabres games. I think that music definitely influences my mood. If I just got done listening to a depressing song, I probably don’t feel as happy as I would if I listened to a more upbeat song. When I played sports in high school, I always played music before games to pump me up and get me in the mood. Without my music I wasn’t as excited to play as I was when I listened to my pre-game playlist.