New Years Resolution: Regarding Cynicism

Written on January 19, 2012 – 11:56 am by Ding

I dislike resolutions.  I dislike what they do to my brain the rest of the year.  If there is something worth making a resolution about then you probably shouldn’t have to wait until you start writing on a new calendar and you should instead just start doing it and the idea of New Years Resolutions makes me not want to start doing something until I get to a neat round number of a date.

It’s probably the same reason I strongly dislike Valentine’s day.  Someone can be a filthy scum-weasel to their significant other all year round and get a free pass if they take them to Paris on Februrary 14th.  Similar with “Christmas spirit” (as in good cheer, not drinking before noon), you should be a good and cheerful person all year round, not just when the world tells you to buy a few cards and presents.

With that being said, with 2012 rolling around, it got me thinking about what I would like to change about myself.  I considered that maybe doing a bit of exercise might be a good idea, drinking less would also be good and possibly being a little more generally organised in terms of diet and lifestyle, but to be honest I’m in a good place with all of that.  The thing that I really want to change is my attitude towards things.  It’s not that I have a particularly bad attitude towards life in general and I consider myself optimistic and irritatingly chirpy at times, but when it comes to media and entertainment, I have been passively brainwashed to hate and despise everything without giving it a fair chance.

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Categories: Blog-like, Comics, Computer Games, Film, General, TV | Tags: , | 1 Response

Chaotic Tortoise begins advertising drive

Written on November 26, 2011 – 1:15 pm by Ding

20111126-132300.jpg

As I’ve started going for a few sub-editing jobs, I also thought I’d practise my pun headlines…

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RSS Videos

Written on November 4, 2011 – 10:54 am by Ding

For anyone subscribed to my site through an RSS feed, my videos sadly don’t show up in there.  I’m trying to work out if I can fix that or if it’s a quirk of the blip.tv player, but in the mean time, you’ll have to have to click through to the site to see them!

 

Oh, and there’s no video in this post.  So you”re ok with this one.  You can stay where you are.

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Game Addiction and Compulsion

Written on August 26, 2011 – 12:54 pm by Ding

The guys behind my favourite web show, Extra Credits, have recently done a two part episode on the issue of game addiction, the second part of which is a wildly different format to their usual set up due to the fact that it’s a subject that’s close to home for show writer James Portnow, and consisted of a very heartfelt retelling of his own personal experiences with game addiction/compulsion.

They make the point that games aren’t addictive in the medical sense as they don’t create a chemical dependency, but that they can be remarkably compelling and grown adults can turn away from real life to sink themselves into a virtual one.

They also make the very valid point that if you have fallen into this sort of lifestyle, you are not alone.

I know there are a couple of people who read this blog who politely (and often quite rightly) complain whenever I write something a little bit more personal than usual, so for you guys, this post might be one to skip.

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This Week’s Tortoises – 15-21 August 2011

Written on August 21, 2011 – 11:00 am by Ding

This week we have talked about games, their potential, and I’ve noodled around with trying to learn some new things.

We started the week with  a recommendation for Desktop Dungeons.

I talk about nostalgia attached to arcades and the problems they face in The Death of the Arcade.

I go through the awe inspiring Swordquest and submit a plea for something similar to happen again.

Revisiting a theme that I touched on the other week, we take a look at Steam and Digital Distribution.

The first in the Learn By Doing series, Sick of Ninjas, a silly short film made with lego.

On Friday, it’s not that I had a bad day, but I did have a rant about something that was playing on my mind with Uninspiring Television.

Finally, another Learn By Doing film with Curiosity Killed The World, wherein I learn about poor sound quality.

Hope you’ve had a great week and see you again tomorrow for more gaming, technology and hopefully some more film making.

-Ding

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This Week’s Tortoises – 8-14 August 2011

Written on August 14, 2011 – 10:00 am by Ding

This picture sums up my personal highlight of this week.

This week we have seen rioting in London, legal wrangling in the gaming world and I managed to find a needle in a haystack.  This weeks tortoises have been the following:

A little commentary on Bethesda’s trademark action in Trademark Trolls:  Scrolls and Bethesda v Mojang.  (I realise that looks like [Scrolls and Bethesda] v [Mojang] now but is actually meant [Scrolls] and [Bethesda v Mojang].  Some inadvertent eats shoots and leaves stuff there.)

My most popular post to date with The Return of the Cat, which makes sense because it’s about a cat and this is the internet.  I am seriously considering becoming a cat blogger (as in somebody who blogs about cats, not a cat who blogs).

Concern over the way that the media is trying to classify Technology as a Scapegoat with their remarks about how it was largely orchestrated through Twitter.

The aggravating nature of requiring Constant Internet Connections for Gaming and just how far the internet has come for this to be viable.

Another Tortoise Butler film with Portal 2 Music Video – Exile Vilify By The National in which highly talented people achieve deserted London shots by getting up at stupid ‘o clock, film high quality video clips in a short space of time, and I make posters and buildings that aren’t there in Photoshop.

A growing trend in iOS games for Delayed Gameplay Games which tell you when you can play and not the other way around (now with a wonderful comment from someone who I can tell has been deeply wounded by this sort of game).

This week’s iPad/iPhone Game:  Dream Track Nation, a simple time trial racer with buckets of charm.

We finish the week on two posts about how to make comics, with How to Make Comics Part 1 making soft reassuring noises that you don’t need a full blown graphic design studio and How to Make Comics Part 2 blowing simplicity out of the water by talking about my method of colouring things in using Photoshop.

 

That’s all for this week.   I hope you’ve had as productive and satisfying week as I have and have thoroughly enjoyed the weekend as much as I’m hoping to, as I am writing this on Saturday morning (which means I’m communicating with the future I suppose).  Also just want to give a small self indulgent plug, but I have now passed all of my NCTJ exams and am officially fully qualified as a journalist, so if you want to employ me for a commission or an actual job, drop me a line at davidDOTofDOThingATgmailDOTcom and we can talk!

-Ding

 

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The Boating Cat

Written on August 10, 2011 – 10:27 am by Ding

Being still utterly blown away by the fact that we’ve found our little silver killing machine, much to the relief of ourselves and the resident Chertsey wildlife population, I suspect my blog might take on a slightly bipolar feel for the next few days as I periodically say things like “I can’t believe we found the cat” which is something I stop and say out loud every five minutes or so.

This is the cat and the dog on the boat during a previous holiday.

They break the stereotype and seem to get on quite well, even if it does seem to occasionally be an uneasy alliance.  When we had brought the cat back to my house to feed her, she wrapped herself around my legs, my mum’s legs and much to all of our surprise, dog included, the dog’s legs.

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The Return of the Cat

Written on August 8, 2011 – 4:07 pm by Ding

We found my cat!

I generally try to avoid posting information about my personal life here because if I wasn’t me, I probably wouldn’t care either, but this has just bowled me over and even as I sit here writing this, I half expect to wake up in a minute.

After finishing my NCTJ diploma and my internship at Bit-Tech, there was a missing week between then and starting to focus more on Chaotic Tortoise where I was trawling the river Wey looking for the family cat.  Let me give you a bit of background.

Flossie in front of the narrow boat

This is Flossie.  She is a beautiful seven year old silver tabby, one part fur and good looks to two parts spiky bits.  She’s friendly, she’s sociable, she’ll happily curl up to you if you’re warmer than her unless you are a mouse or small fluffy creature in which case she will do the cat-like thing and tear you to shreds.  She is the very last thing I’d want to face in a dark alley if I was any species other than human.  It goes without saying that she is a much loved family cat that we have looked after since she was a kitten.

A couple of weeks ago, my parents were on holiday on their narrow boat and planned to come up to Surrey and the river Wey so that I could meet them for lunch or dinner for an evening at some point before they turned around and headed for home.

On the morning of the day that I was expecting to see them I got a heart-breaking call from my mum saying that they had lost the cat.

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This Week’s Tortoises – 1-7 August 2011

Written on August 7, 2011 – 10:00 am by Ding

This week has seen a flurry of activity as I have rediscovered the joys of blogging.  In order of earlier in the week to later in the week, we have had:

 

 

The Chaotic Tortoise What David Hing Has Been Doing ™ post in The Writer’s Quest Continues

 

 

 

 

 

A Tortoise Butler film called Listening Post

 

 

 

 

 

Game review of iPhone/iPad game Quiz Climber

 

 

 

 

In light of some commentary from Ars Technica, thoughts on game journalism and marketing in Game Journalists and the Marketing Machine

 

 

 

 

 

 

Video on demand and online broadcasting discussed as technology we take for granted in If you could have your own TV show…

 

 

 

 

Sharing mistakes and experiences in Game Design Friday:  Placeholder Graphics

 

 

 

 

 

 

Killer Dice review of farming-based board game Agricola

 

 

 

-Ding

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The Writer’s Quest Continues

Written on August 3, 2011 – 10:33 am by Ding

When this blog goes for any length of time without an update it’s normally because I have succumbed to my tortoise-like nature and become incredibly lazy, but this time it’s mostly because I have been incredibly busy.

What follows after the jump is a brief summary of my last five months or so, what I have learnt about myself, what I have done and what I am doing.

I am earning money as a freelance writer

If you want to employ a freelance writer, please drop me a line on davidDOTofDOThingATgmailDOTcom, replacing the capitalised DOTs and ATs with their relevant symbols.

At the moment I’m probably not quite earning enough to give up the day job, which is a shame, because I gave up the day job, but that just means I need to find another day job in the near future.

I am now (results pending) a fully qualified NCTJ journalist.

I did a full time course set by the NCTJ (National Council for the Training of Journalists:  An acronym that I still embarrassingly enough get muddled up whenever I say it) that finished a couple of weeks ago.  I met some fantastically talented people there, some of whom will undoubtedly be the next big thing in your favourite paper, on your favourite website or your favourite news broadcast programme.  The rest are probably sick of journalism right now and will need a break because the course is rather intense, unrelenting and tends to beat the journalism into you so hard that some of it will occasionally go right through and come out the other side.

Incidentally, if anyone reading this is interested in a career in journalism, do an NCTJ.  You won’t realise how little you know until you do.  I did mine at News Associates, who have centres in London and Manchester and although they are pricey by comparison, it is the first piece of education that I have paid for that I feel I not only got a good deal but probably didn’t pay them enough for all the work they put in.

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