December 2004 Archives

I just stumbled across this site browsing Eris Design, and I thought that it might be helpful for anyone trying to fiddle with colors on their blog (because we all know that's the only thing I seem to think about...! LOL).

Click here to get to the page, that looks like this:

Find the little "window" at the bottom right-hand corner,

and click that.

Drag the colors on the left to the "window" on the right to see how colors might look on your blog. For instance, what will white text look like on top of a light blue background...

Play around, and have fun :)

A literary magazine called the "Orphan Leaf Review" has posted a call for submissions. They are looking for one-line literary works, or one single page from an imaginary longer work. If you've dabbled with hypertext or interactive fiction authorship, you'll probably find this set of constraints equally stimulating,

the Orphan Leaf Review

orphan leaf n. a single page apparently torn from a book. The page exists, the rest of the book may not. Read to the end of the page. Let your imagination do the rest.

Interesting find on Crooked Timber. They're talking about the gender gap in the blogging world, which ties in with a class discussion in Writing for the Internet. I wish this post had come a month earlier. An excerpt:

Well tonight's the big night... and things are really getting crazy. For the past three weeks the four Dwellers responsible for this show have been working like mad to get things in order. Re-learning lines, organizing props, and putting to use a new ad campaign that I laid out. All of which is summed up by our performance tonight and tomorrow.

In an unusual twist of events, the Beaver County Times has decided to cover this show, right after covering our last one. In the past, the Times usually does a story on us around once or twice a year. This will be our fourth major story from them in under a year! Check it out!.

For those of you who are in the area, or feel like driving a tad to see a great Christmas show, here's what you need to know:

TONIGHT, Friday December 17th
Community College of Beaver County, Center Twp.
Allied Health Auditorium in Building 6 (you can't miss this place)
8:00PM Admission $5.00

TOMORROW, Saturday December 18th
Geneva College, Beaver Falls
Bagpiper Theater (across from Pizza Joe's)
8:00PM Admission $5.00

Check out the Career Development blogging website for your chance to win awesome Seton Hill University prizes!

Rules in this contest:

All you have to do is check out our site daily and if you find any of the entries interesting, boring, helpful, etc... make sure to leave comments to let us know! We want your feedback!

What needs improved with our blogging website?
Our Career Development Office on 5th Admin?

Make sure to post your comments daily... contest begins on
December 14, 2004 and ends on January 24, 2005!

They're accepting nominees at the Best of Blog (BoB) Awards 2004.

The College Republicans will be sponsoring a movie night on campus. Anyone can attend, and it will be a strictly fun event (no politics involved!). We will be showing the film DODGEBALL with Vince Vaugn and Ben Stiller. It will be Tuesday evening during finals week, a perfect time to relax and take a break from studying.

"DODGEBALL"
TONIGHT Tuesday, December 14th
9:00PM
Admin 308

All are welcome! Feel free to bring food, pop (or soda), and your friends!

No seriously, "The Truth", this Fall's issue of Eye Contact has just arrived! So I recommend everyone make sure they pick up a copy of this great collection of prose, poetry and art from Seton Hill students and alumni!

To get an issue, drop us a card with your name and Box number into the house mail: Eye Contact Box 246 or e-mail us at eyecontact@setonhill.edu

Why are the Arabs and the Israelis fighting? Do you know why?

Dude!

Older adults, baffled by the new forms of language that regularly appear in youth cultures, frequently characterize young people's language as "inarticulate," and then provide examples that illustrate the specific forms of linguistic mayhem performed by "young people nowadays." For American teenagers, these examples usually include the discourse marker like, rising final intonation on declaratives, and the address term dude, which is cited as an example of the inarticulateness of young men in particular. This stereotype views the use of dude as unconstrained -- a sign of inexpressiveness in which one word is used for any and all utterances. These kinds of stereotypes, of course, are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the functions and meanings of these linguistic forms. As analyses of like and rising intonation have shown, these forms are constrained in use and elegantly expressive in meaning. Dude is no exception. In this article I outline the patterns of use for dude, and its functions and meanings in interaction. I provide some explanations for its rise in use, particularly among young men, in the early 1980s, and for its continued popularity since then.

This just arrived in my e-mail...

Office of Public Information/Institutional Advancement

General Duties & Responsibilities:

- write press releases and articles for the Communicator
- assist with press conferences & SHU events
- take photos for the Communicator
- cover SHU events for the Communicator (including events that take place outside office hours when possible - these hours count toward internship requirements and are flexible - we work around student's schedule)
- prepare press clippings for posting on Post Office bulletin board & inclusion in clip books provided to SHU Board of Trustees 3 - 4 x/year
- post press releases in html on SHU's website
- other duties as assigned

Grilled cheese sandwich, a plate from the Titanic, a ghost of a grandfather--these elements only have one thing in common, and it has nothing to do with a joke about a bar or an urban legend.

Think auction... ... ...

[[Read more]]

Why are the Arabs and the Israelis fighting? Do you know why?

Do you like computer games?

Want a chance to win $25,000?

The Liemandt Foundation is offering a cash prize for the best educational computer game created by a student.

A few students in "Writing for the Internet" are using the programming language Inform to create interactive fiction games. When the kids are in bed, I spend my leisure time creating platform-jumping style games with The Games Factory (an inexpensive, point-and-click, no-programming-necessary authoring tool that comes with a free demo.) I've also bookmarked Adventure Game Studio, which is a free utility that lets you create Kings Quest/Space Quest style computer games. I've also started "modding" -- that is, designing my own levels for current first-person action games.

In the Fall of 2006, I will teach a course called "New Media Projects," and would welcome game design projects. You don't have to be a new media journalism major to take that course; I'd welcome graphic arts, computer science, and education students as well. There are a few prerequisites, though, so if you are at all interested, contact me.

Anyway, here is the notice from the Liemandt Foundation. All they want from you now is a statement that you're interested in participating. You can figure out what kind of game you want to create later; and you can even change your mind comletely.

Thanks so much for showing interest in the Hidden Agenda College Game Development contest!! Without people like you, this nonprofit program and the potential of education through video games wouldn't be where it is today. We are officially 2 weeks away from when all preliminary entries must be received. I'd hate to have people not enter because of a missed deadline during finals, so PLEASE -- if you are thinking of entering, take 10 minutes fill out the form (attached and at http://www.hiddenagenda.com ) and mail it to 4910 Ave G, Austin TX 78751.

Today I was fined $25.00 for hiding my Resident Advisior's laundry basket. I was fined under the contention that this was an act of "theft," after I appologized and returned the basket, (dirty socks, uderwear and T-shirts), all in tact. So...not only was I fined $25.00 for "stealing" a laudry basket, full of treasures I'm sure, but they didn't even let me keep some of the sweet, sweet pay dirt. Clearly my goal was to fashion the pungent undergarments into a noose so I could have some excitement while I gratified myself, right? That's not my America. A land free of religious persecution, a land of opportunities for the upstart hard-worker, and a land where a resident can eat a reuben sandwhich made with chipped beef, rye bread, and his R.A.'s dirty tighty-whities?-- wasn't this what the Cuban Missle Crisis was all about?

I've started to chew tobacco here at good old Seton Hill. It's great, I never have to buy a can of my own smokeless tobacco, since it's all over the shower floor! It takes a goal-oriented young adult to take out his dip and leave it in the shower basin. I just take a box cutter, put a few slits between the toes and I’m anxiously walking down the hall to the shower. I know what you’re thinking, "Can nicotine really enter your bloodstream through cuts in your feet?" The answer is yes, and there's nothing like that buzz I get shampooing my hair while I’m holding back puke. The best thing about getting your nicotine fix from old chew in the shower is clumps of chew look a lot like the clumps of feces I’ve become accustomed to. Had a little mix up last week though, when I went to lay my bleeding feet on what I though was a saliva covered, day-old, dip turned out to be a day-old turd. Now I have a staff infection.
GO GRIFFINS!

To you, I ask this-