Note to readers

This is a blog that I'm required to keep that's full of unedited, near stream-of-consciousness reactions to similarly required and related readings in a graduate course in N.C. State University's Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media program. The way these posts are written help me interrogate and understand what's going on in our readings. I'm identifying what's troublesome so that I can give it more thought, but the posts aren't written in a style that's productive for audiences outside of our class to read. That's by design. I start with contestation, then spend heavens only knows how long researching, recutting, and reevaluating so that I can try and see what potentially productive readings I can extract from these source for use in my own work's contributions back to the field. Comments encouraged, but please, you'll likely need a thick skin if your work is quoted here.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Unapologetically tootin' my horn

Awl hell, I hate people who pimp themselves, but there's a time when it must be done. This time is often about 12:30am when you've wasted a weekend looking at the same daggum paper, editing it like mad but knowing that you haven't made it a whit better than when you started, with the argument your brain's envisioning hidden behind the cruft you've managed to slap down on the page.

So yeah, I've been cited dammit. F'n L, yeah. Sure, I'd gotten the same jive used in a course at Duke, but never cited. I will not be influenced by the fact that the citation is in a master's thesis -- it's a doctoral thesis. Hells yeah. And it's in French, dang it. Beat that.

Dans « Inviting Subversion: Metalepse and Tmesis in Rockstar Games' ÇJrand Theft Auto Series », Wm. Ruffin Bailey a observé comment le jeu pouvait être subverti par les joueurs à travers des modifications effectives du monde numérique. Les conceptetirsde Rockstar ont rendu assez aisée la tâche d'altérer le code des Grand Theft Auto, en autorisant le joueur à modifier l'apparence et même, parfois, le fonctionnement du monde numérique. En opérant sur le code, un joueur peut, par exemple, manipuler les « skins19 » (fournir à Clouaux personnages de nouveaux vêtements) ou créer ses propres modèles d'automobile, plus puissants ou plus résistants que ceux qui sont inclus dans le jeu.


Let's do a poor English translation:

In "Inviting Subversion: Metalepsis and Tmesis in Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto," some arsehole has observed how the game can have been subverted by the gamers who use modifications to change the [game's] digital world. The [parbleu, non?] Rockstar has made rather easy the task of altering the code of Grand Theft Auto, and authorized the gamer to modify the appearance and even, at times, the function of the digital world. By changing the code, a player can, for example, manipulate the skins (to furnish the protagonist new clothes) or create his own car models, more powerful or resistant than those which are included in the game [by default].


Even though he leaves out Hot Coffee, the sort of climax of the piece (hardy har har), it's close a dammed nuff. Sweet. Now I must channel that plus Mr. Daniels to complete this City Paper.

2 comments:

Susan said...

That simply rocks, Ruffin!

ruffin said...

Any port in an uninspirational storm, I always say.