Evaluation

I've enjoyed this week and found it to be very influential. The only thing that I would have changed about this week is that we could have spent less time on out articels and spent more time on developing the layout of the pages. I also learnt how to use my grammar in my writing better and I have always checked through everything I've written including this evaluation, I have also learnt how to write headlines. I think that most of the week went well and if something like this came up again, I would jump in, head first.

Research

all the research I did on the project:















Quotes:
"Gaming can take us out of the worries of real life and take us into another kind of world without the hassle of it affecting our real life worries” - Anonymous Gamer
"What is this outside you speak of?" - Obsessive gamer when questioned: "when was the last time you went outside?"
"Outside, is that a new Role Playing Game?" - Obsessive gamer when questioned: "when was the last time you went outside?"
"I've got a Kinect for the Xbox 360, which means I don't have to go outside anymore!" – a gamer who has just recently brought a Kinect
“They’ve made of game of Doctor Who, now I don’t have to watch TV to see Doctor Who.” – Doctor Who/Gamer Obsessive
"Who can spend all their time on games when there are more important things to do" - Friend/Shop addict
"I want a 3DS, but I'm going to wait till the price goes down a bit" - Student Gamer
"I wish we never brought your brother that Megadrive, look what it's turned him into!" - My mom
“I got myself an Kinect, so I don’t have to walk over to the door, open it and go outside, I can skip all that and just switch on the Xbox and get straight to the exercise, who needs all that oxygen anyway.” – Gamer who likes exercise but hates outdoors
“If I wasn’t playing on games, I would be bored and I hate been bored” – 10 year old sister whose older brother encouraged her into gaming by letting her watch that once.
“I wished he’s get off that thing so I can use the television for a change” – Dad who likes TV
“Wow! Look at the graphics out here, they’re amazing!” – Obsessive game who I told to go outside
“I tried to play Sudoku once, let’s just say it ended badly” – Xbox gamer
“Sudoku, Isn’t that maths with boxes? I like boxes, they contain items that help me regain health” – Idiot gamer

Development of article...

For my development I used a picture of a pile of books and played around with different layouts.

This is development of playing with different colours overall i'm very happy with what i have produced, I think if it did go in the Feed magazine, I would use a different picture as I didnt have enough time.

This is my final design.

Artical Layout Preview

Work on progress. I drew the Wii-mote myself on photoshop, I think it's very cartoon-y-ish.

Finished Version, Huzzah!

Development of final article.

This was how the group generated ideas based on questions if we had a magazine. We came up with a title, target audience, what it would look like and who it who its competitors would be.

I firstly drafted the first couple of lines for my article, wrote down my research and thought about how it would all fit together.

Once i had finished it, I looked throught it and edited it.

This is how it looked before i made my final changes.

Healine Help

If anyone can suggest anymore ideas then the ones that I've got now, it'll be very helpful

Headline ideas:

Why are you so obsessed with Wii?

Thwii, is the magic number

Halo: Reach for the controller

Press “A” to start the article

I Wii-ly like gaming

If you’re reading this, you’re not a gamer

Wow! Look at the graphics on this page they’re amazing!

Loading…

Player 1… GO!

Respawn in 5…4…3…

My Xbox brings all the boys to the yard

Why you so obsessed with Wii?

No, i'm not going with that title... maybe I might but not for the moment

He woke up the morning, glancing at the Xbox controller that he tossed aside the night before, he sluggishly picks it up, switches on his Xbox and spends another day, doing what he always does, his obsession.
Gaming has been around since 1972, when a console called: “The Odyssey”, was released and ever since then, gaming has advanced further than anybody over 30 had expected, under 30’s kind of expected it. It has since then become an entertainment value to all, to some people though, gaming is an obsession, a passion to strive for and the only thing in life that can keep them going, day by day.
As I browsed the internet for my research, I found a website that had a blog, a blog which contained from and image that had been print screened while on Amazon for a product for adult diaper, below with the Frequently Brought Together section was an image of the product on the page and a game called: Call of Duty 4, which itself just proves how far some people will go to play games all day, without any interruptions what so ever, even daily needs, kind of sad how the world has come, to a world where skills that are learnt during youth, are ditch for such an obsession.
I also found a forum and in this forum, I found a thread that gamers were talking about games in general, and somehow less obsessive gamers had found this thread. When these people mentioned if these obsessive people had been outside, there only responses were things like: "What is this outside you speak of?" and "Outside, is that a new Role Playing Game?", so one person took it to their liberty to tell them to “Go outside” and one gamer took the challenge and came back with the response: “Wow! Look at the graphics out there, they’re amazing!” Can anyone encourage these gamers off their chairs and experience the movement of their bodies and the feel of fresh air?
Yes because Nintendo did something clever and invented the Wii, which would require effort such as moving your arm, and moving both your arms, both these efforts required the gamers to stand up, but whenever you see the adverts for Mario Kart, JLS were sitting down, so deifier of logic win?
There are even games that can educate you as well such as: “How old is your Brain” which is a game that makes you do English, Math’s and all sorts of questions that help you to improve your brain age and make you more intelligent, but what is this compared to Halo? You can’t kill anything except your stupidity, I mean killing freaky alien things on a faraway planet is so much better math’s, silly creators, no one likes school, Killings aliens is more addictive then Sudoku, if your under 30.
However, Microsoft came up with a clever idea to help encourage lazy obsessive gamers, the Xbox 360’s Kinect, which is a camera, which you stick on top of your 42” HD TV, the user acts as a controller, so the user will have no other choice but to stand up. The Kinect has had positive review as it encourages even the laziest of gamers to stand up, quotes such as: "I've got a Kinect for the Xbox 360, which means I don't have to go outside anymore!" and also “I got myself an Kinect, so I don’t have to walk over to the door, open it and go outside, I can just skip all that and just switch on the Xbox and get straight to the exercise, who needs all that oxygen anyway.
And as the darkness falls onto the world, he continues his gaming into the cold and dark of the night, until eventually sleep takes over his obsession.

The queen of pop and the icon that is Madonna has bought an excellent view to the acoustic guitar. She reveals these in her albums; Music and American Life, to mention two. The album, which was Music, featured the song, ‘Don’t tell me.’ This song had a guitar riff played by the ‘cow-boys’. You could describe the guitar playing like a stop-and-go guitar riff. A stop-and-go guitar riff is a rhythm of playing by strumming the strings and plucking individual strings, to pick out certain notes. The song, ‘Don’t tell me’ begins with a new riff in guitar playing. It is started in the chord of ‘D’ and only certain strings on the chord are plucked. This is to create the sound of the song. The chords then change to various other corporating chords which come back to ‘coda’ or the starting chord of the song. The song is an intriguing song that all guitar players would like to make an attempt at playing in some point of their practicing days. The album which was ‘American Life’that was released in 2003, also features new guitar riffs that have new string plucking techniques and finger picking styles. This album features ‘stuttering guitars’ with cleverly practiced string plucking and finger picking of the guitar. The feature song of the album is probably ‘Hollywood’ This song can be played with the capo on the second fret of the guitar. The starting chord is A-minor. Again there is a featuring style of a stuttering guitar in this song, with the strings being plucked strategically to create a synth and grinding sound. The guitarists’ play the song, ‘Hollywood’ with the capo on fret two. The starting chord is A-minor and the strings, D,G, B and E are plucked in a certain order to create the sound for the song. There is also a riff which this song is played to, which gives it a techno-rap quality. This is the effect of the electronic-synth in the strumming of the strings, which gives a unique sound that was first brought to attention in the song ‘Don’t tell me.’ The song, ‘Hollywood’ starts with a simple but effective style of strumming, of the strings. There is then a jump of the finger picking in the song. This is incorporated with a change in chords, which jumps and infiltrates between the four chords which are used in the playing of the song ‘Hollywood.’ These chords are; A-minor, C major, G, and D major. The riff-style of the song is something that is up to the individual to master. The ‘A-minor’ chord uses three of the fingers on your left hand, presuming you are a right handed guitar player. The fingers, 2 and 3 are placed behind, on the 2nd fret. Your index finger goes on the second string, in the first fret. The following chord is a ‘C’ major, which is played with the index finger staying on the ‘B’ string whilst your middle finger goes on the fourth string and the third ‘little finger’ goes on the fifth string in the next fret. The chord is then changed to ‘G’ major followed by a ‘D’ chord and then back to 'coda.'This is why I enjoy listening to the guitar in her songs.

Ob-ses-sion [noun] the domination of one's thoughts or feelings by a persistent idea, image, desire, etc.

I have decided to write my article based around the way that technology has come to dominate almost every aspect of our lives in the current day and age we are living in. I chose this subject not only because of my personal obsession but because of the bigger picture in which people are globally obsessed with having the latest tech and how our obsession with technology has changed aspects of our lives.

Initial brainstorm around the theme -obsession-

My final Article by Lucy Cooper.

Obsession to me is a hoarder. A person who has needs to collect something and let it take over their lives. My Nan was one of these people.

She was a strong minded, independent individual who had the need to add more to her collection of books and Jigsaws every week. But with frequent visits to her house, I began to notice books piled up on each other with magazines by their side, never touched.

Compulsive hoarding is an excessive amount of objects that may have no meaning to that person. It could range from toilet rolls to cardboard boxes which the sufferer cannot throw away. This can be called disposophobia which is being linked to the animal behavior of food hoarding. Animals such as hamsters and rats do this in order to survive – is that why so many sufferers become obsessed with this compulsive need? Ephemera is the collecting of postcards, stamps and tickets which were created to only last a short time. We collect these objects because they mean something to us and they can also count as a hobby. It does not become obsessive because it’s controlled, such as stamp collecting. Stamps are placed in protective covering and left in stored albums- when they are full, the person buys another album. It only becomes obsessive by the need to buy more albums for their stamps until they have filled two whole bookshelves. By deciding how much that person has collected in numbers, we immediately call it obsessive. A suffer who collects books and magazines only think of the need to have more - this is called Bibliomania. Some suffers can buy the same book in the same edition and be completely unaware they have it already and may have more hidden away. A magazine edition which only runs for a short period of time can evoke the need to keep buying the next copy. Once it has finished, does it leave a lasting impression of this ‘need’ to have more? This also happens with the series of books that you may never read but you need them all.

My Nan was always collecting series of books and magazines that she could never read properly due to cataracts in her eye. Still she brought five or six a week and they would sit in a pile on the floor in one of the rooms. Her friends were never allowed to visit her either, I asked her about this once but she never said anything. I now wonder if she did all this to fill up her house, to make it as big and less lonely as it must have felt. With all the dolls, bears, jigsaws and books she had, I think they provided comfort to her. Is this the same comfort other suffers search for, the need to fill an empty hole called loneliness?

My article

I have decided to base my article on compulsive hoarding and have found these two links have given me alot of information about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_hoarding

http://www.aetv.com/hoarders/