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Boobs vs. Willies

October 20, 2008 by Leave a Comment

A family is at the dinner table. The son asks his father, ‘Dad, how many Kinds of boobs are there?’

The father, surprised, answers, ‘Well, son, a woman goes through three phases. In her 20s, a woman’s boobs are like melons, round and firm. In Her 30s to 40s, they are like pears, still nice but hanging a bit. After 50, they are like onions’.

‘Onions?’

‘Yes, you see them and they make you cry.’

This infuriated his wife and daughter, so the daughter said, ‘Mom, how many kinds of ‘willies’ are there?’

The mother, surprised, smiles and answers, ‘Well dear, a man goes through three phases also. In his 20s, his willy is like an oak tree, mighty and Hard. In his 30s and 40s, it is like a birch, flexible but reliable. After his 50s, it is like a Christmas tree’.

‘A Christmas tree?’

‘Yes — dead from the roots up and the balls are just for decoration.’

Filed Under: Email Joke Graveyard, Sex, The Gender Wars

Helpful Hints

October 20, 2008 by Leave a Comment

If you had purchased $1000.00 of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49.00.

With Enron, you would have had $16.50 left of the original $1000.00.

With WorldCom, you would have had less than $5.00 left.

If you had purchased $1000 of Delta Air Lines stock you would have $49.00 left.

But, if you had purchased $1,000.00 worth of beer/wine one year ago, drank all the beer/wine, then turned in the cans/bottles for the aluminium recycling REFUND, you would have had $214.00.

Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to Drink heavily and recycle.

Filed Under: Email Joke Graveyard, Trivia

Girlie wisdom

October 20, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Women over 50 don’t have babies because they would put them down and forget where they left them.

A friend of mine confused her Valium with her birth control pills.. she has 14 kids but doesn’t really care.

One of life’s mysteries is how a 2-pound box of chocolates can make a woman gain 5 lbs.

My mind not only wanders, it sometimes leaves completely.

The best way to forget your troubles is to wear tight shoes.

The nice part about living in a small town is that when you don’t know what you are doing, someone else does.

The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight because by then, your body and your fat are really good friends.

Just when I was getting used to yesterday, along came today.

Sometimes I think I understand everything, and then I regain consciousness.

I gave up jogging for my health when my thighs kept rubbing together and setting fire to my knicker’s.

Amazing! You hang something in your closet for a while and it shrinks 2 sizes!

Skinny people irritate me! Especially when they say things like…’You know sometimes I forget to eat!’ ……..Now I’ve forgotten my address, my mother’s maiden name and my keys, but I have never forgotten to eat. You have to be a special kind of stupid to forget to eat!

The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing and then they marry him.

I read this article that said the typical symptoms of stress are eating too much, impulse buying, and driving too fast. Are they kidding? That’s my idea of a perfect day!

SEND THIS TO 5 BRIGHT WOMEN YOU KNOW AND MAKE THEIR DAY!!!
LIVE SIMPLY…..LAUGH OFTEN….LOVE DEEPLY

Filed Under: Email Joke Graveyard, The Gender Wars

A mature lady gets pulled over for speeding…

October 20, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Woman: Is there a problem, Officer?

Officer: Ma’am, you were speeding.

Woman: Oh, I see.

Officer: Can I see your license please?

Woman: I’d give it to you but I don’t have one.

Officer: Don’t have one?

Woman: Lost it, 4 years ago for drunk driving.

Officer: I see…Can I see your vehicle registration papers please.

Woman: I can’t do that.

Officer: Why not?

Woman: I stole this car.

Officer: Stole it?

Woman: Yes, and I killed and hacked up the owner.

Officer: You what?

Woman: His body parts are in plastic bags in the trunk if you want to see

The Officer looks at the woman and slowly backs away to his car and calls for back up. Within minutes 5 police cars circle the car. A senior officer slowly approaches the car, clasping his half drawn gun.

Officer 2: Ma’am, could you step out of your vehicle please!
The woman steps out of her vehicle.

Woman: Is there a problem sir?

Officer 2: One of my officers told me that you have stolen this car and murdered the owner.

Woman: Murdered the owner?

Officer 2: Yes, could you please open the trunk of your car, please.

The woman opens the trunk, revealing nothing but an empty trunk.

Officer 2: Is this your car, ma’am?

Woman: Yes, here are the registration papers.
The officer is quite stunned.

Officer 2: One of my officers claims that you do not have a driving license.

The woman digs into her handbag and pulls out a clutch purse and hands it to the officer.

The officer examines the license. He looks quite puzzled.

Officer 2: Thank you ma’am, one of my officers told me you didn’t have a license, that you stole this car, and that you murdered and hacked up the owner.

Woman: Bet the b****** told you I was speeding, too.

Filed Under: Email Joke Graveyard, The Gender Wars

Welcome!

October 20, 2008 by Leave a Comment

For years, I complained about the ceaseless barrage of jokes sent to me via email by friends and family. I’d get particularly frustrated if I received the same joke email multiple times over a short period of time. I’d be near screaming point if I got the same again joke 6 months later.

Then I realised that the fact it comes via email is nothing more than a different delivery method. Twenty years ago you’d hear the same joke over and over but would you punch the lights out of the person who relayed it for the seventh time. Ok – sometimes you probably did want to get violent but you know what I mean: at the end of it all, a joke is something that’s meant to make you happy. I’m the first to admit I’ve got some good laughs from email jokes.

Aside from that, I’ve always wondered who generates the jokes in the first place. For the particularly good ones, I want to keep them sometimes. I know there are hundreds of thousands of email inboxes worldwide with ‘Jokes’ folders. This site is the next step on from that: a growing repository of jokes if for some reason you want to relive some humour. I’d particularly love to hear from the creators of the jokes – if you honestly believe you started the joke you see, comment on that post and give some history.

If you’re wondering what order jokes are appearing – they’ll appear as I receive them myself. There’s no accounting for taste so even the jokes that just make you groan will be featured. That said, overtly racist jokes or ones that go beyond the pale aren’t likely to be posted.

So please enjoy, have a laugh or two, and I look forward to building a community of fun!

Filed Under: Email Joke Graveyard, Site news

Weekend Whimsy

October 18, 2008 by Leave a Comment

1. Obama in Second Life

2. Torben Asp at Skatepark of Tampa

3. SecondLife: Moondance

Filed Under: User-generated, Virtual Worlds Tagged With:

Foul Whisperings, Strange Matters

October 17, 2008 by 2 Comments

It’s been a great couple of weeks for interesting new Australian presences in Second Life. Last weekend, ‘Foul Whisperings, Strange Matters‘ launched. It’s a fascinating take on Shakespeare’s Macbeth character, a “timely use of pop culture as an adaptive bridge between classic texts and new media technology”.

The first five minutes of my wanderings around the build were reminiscent of the last Australia Council funded build I wandered around, Babelswarm. In this case, the New Media Consortium provided part of the funding as well. The similarity isn’t in relation to content, it’s the quality of the content. As Macduff says in the play: “The life o’ the building!”.

Three Australian collaborators were involved with the project: multimedia artist Kate Richards, theatre and film director Kerreen Ely Harper and Angela Thomas, a writer and educationalist.

For me, the power of the experience is that there’s plenty of room left for self-interpretation of the intent. Having studied Macbeth a (cough) few years ago, the strength of the themes from that work are strong. English teachers take note: this is an obvious boon for the student analysing Macbeth – the immersiveness and open interpretation provides one mighty playground for discussion of the play itself.

Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets:
More needs she the divine than the physician.
God, God forgive us all! Look after her;
Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
And still keep eyes upon her. So, good night:
My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight.
I think, but dare not speak.

I think it’s fair to say that for most student, Shakespeare can be one of the more forbidding hurdles to overcome, and initiatives like this can only help lower those hurdles. Kudos to the creators, the NMC and to the Australia Council, who have demonstrated an ongoing commitment to virtual worlds as artistic platform.

Check it out in-world

Filed Under: Art, Australian News, Education, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: , , ,

Australian Accountants enter Second Life

October 15, 2008 by 2 Comments

Lee Hopkins (SL: Lee Laperriere), an online communications strategist and Lindy McKeown (SL: Decka Mah), an educational consultant, presented at the Chartered Practising Accountants Congress. Both are well known Australian Second Life residents.

It was the first event in Second Life the accountants peak body has run, and by all accounts it was a success (geddit?).

Lee has the full story on his blog – kudos to CPA Australia for taking the plunge with the Second Life session. When true ROI is demonstrated with virtual worlds, the bean counters themselves will be leading the charge if CPA Australia have anything to do with it.

Filed Under: Australian News, Business, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: , ,

AFTRS: directing the future

October 14, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Gary Hayes has amazing talent. As with so many people who are masterful in their field, he can make the difficult look effortless. However, this time it’s not an attractive and engaging machinima or build that has me excited, but Gary’s words about the new diploma courses being run at AFTRS.

Forget the glitz and glam, ignore the special effects of the promo videos if you are able. Look, feel and presentation are required elements of film, animation, games and virtual worlds. Nonetheless, the promo video for these courses overshadows something that I feel is of far greater importance: these one year graduate diplomas in Games Design (Directing) and Virtual Worlds (Directing) have great technical depth.  Each has been rigorously designed, will be delivered with the intensity and creativity of amazing mentors, and behind each stands a wealth of knowledge concerning both presentation and mechanics.

The new courses will build upon the work performed within the Animation (Directing) course and the LAMP (Laboratory for Advanced Media Production) initiative.

What does ‘directing’ refer to?

The directing portion of the course titles refers to the fact that participants will be taught, in addition to the technical and business aspects, creative leadership skills, and the skills of innovation and entrepreneurship. Students will be expected to pioneer new ideas and thoughts, to create games and worlds never seen before, and they will be mentored in these endeavors. Originality, and the ability to push the envelope, are key. Students must be seen to be creating the future, not just contributing their small part to a company or the community. The focus of the courses is innovation: brand-new genres and interactive, film-like spaces – things which rarely even pass go in the risk-adverse computer games industry.

Games Design (Directing)

In the context of this course, a ‘game’ is defined as “authored or artificially constructed play”. Game formats and genres of a multitude of types will be considered in the course, from casual to serious/simulations, from console to online multi-player, from children to adult, and so on through hundreds of sub-categories. New gaming tools, such as emotional AIs, natural generative dialogue and realistic motion will be covered also. Significantly, game theory will be covered in-depth, and will be given as much importance as the creation of dramatic depth and visual intensity. Students will be expected to study and understand such things as gameplay and usability before they are let loose with visual and audio tools.

“We love games that have play and story at their core and not just great graphics or deep sound.” – Gary Hayes.

Here is an indicative list of the types of topics that will be covered:

Games Story, Character Design, Games in Motion, Storytelling Essentials, Game Level Design, Mechanics of Play, Cross-Media Incubator, Designing Story Worlds, Acting for Animators, Directing Voice Performers, Genre Workshop, Innovation and Form, The Business of Games.

Virtual Worlds (Directing)

Students will be learning to construct virtual worlds. Social worlds and MMORPGS will be covered, as will film pre-visualisation tools and CG-animated story worlds. Film/virtual world cross-overs will be covered in depth.

“We will also have lecturers from across the Australian and international metaverse industry involved in Virtual Worlds who understand financing, finding your market and target users and of course insights into the technical deployment of large scale community driven worlds. So from the outset students will understand how decisions made at napkin, sketching or proof of concept stages can have enormous impact further down the production chain. Each course will have several small incubator projects but the final major project spread over 13+ weeks, will include extra help in project managing rapid and complex productions.” – Gary Hayes.

Here is an indicative list of the types of topics that will be covered:

Designing Story Worlds, Virtual Camera, Social Virtual Worlds, Storytelling Essentials, Virtual Life, Cross-Media Incubator, The Avatar and Interface, World Design, Acting for Animators, Genre Workshop, Directing Voice Performers, Innovation and Form, Episodic Storytelling

“Eventually games are going to be designed in the same virtual space as the film will be.” – Peter Giles.

An especially exciting part of the two courses is the space in which they overlap. Components of each of the Games Design and Virtual Worlds courses will also focus on film production, the involvement of games and virtual worlds in film production, and the cross-pollination between games, virtual worlds and films.

“What makes these courses unique will be the cross-over with the film craft and directing parts of the school.” – Gary Hayes.

A range of professional associates will be employed during the period of the courses, including Matt Costello (Doom, Pirates of the Caribbean), John Buchanan (ex EA Games Research and Development) and Deborah Todd (author of Games: from BlueSky to GreenLight).

The one caveat I would like to issue about these courses concerns their length – just 32 weeks each. Courses run by the AFTRS are well known for their intense nature, and these will not differ in that manner. If you do join the student body, don’t plan on having any sick days – legitimate or otherwise.

See here for the video promo for the Games Design (Directing) and Virtual Worlds (Directing) diploma courses.

See here for a GameFilmWorld crossover video which Hayes produced to highlight the cross-over between the three.

Filed Under: Australian News, Virtual Worlds Tagged With:

Superstruct: six weeks to save the world

October 14, 2008 by 1 Comment

Superstruct homepage

Play the game. Invent the future.

This is the tag line for the MMO forecasting game Superstruct, an alternative reality game set in the future, developed by a team at The Institute for the Future (IFTF). It’s a SF game, where SF has the original meaning of speculative fiction – crises are speculated upon by the game’s designers, and the objective is to speculate upon solutions to those crises in a collaborative manner.

The game launched on October 6 and will run for only 6 weeks. The IFTF, based in Palo Alto, California, is “an independent nonprofit research group.” Assisting organisations to prepare for the future is a major aspect of the work they do. The game draws on their knowledge and foresight to place crises in front of players, and to judge when players have made substantive leaps forward towards the game’s goals.

Superstruct is billed as “the thinking person’s MMO” – strictly, this means that people who get enjoyment out of thinking will enjoy and appreciate the game (there are no orcs to kill here). Nonetheless, it’s important not to be too off put by this description, because no one player is expected to present complete solutions alone, and because as we now know there’s more to intelligence than scoring high on IQ tests. Within the context of the game, people who are able to collaborate well, to get along well with other people, and to bring teams together, will also fare well.

Su`per`struct´ v. t. 1.To build over or upon another structure; to erect upon a foundation.

Humans have been superstructing for centuries. You could look at it as “standing on the shoulders of giants.” We build upon what our ancestors have done before us. In times of crisis and trouble, humans pull together and launch off from the failures and successes of our predecessors – hopefully this tendency, coupled with the power of our current technologies, will help us survive the super-threats facing us in the near future of Superstruct.

Super-threats

The super-threats are a comprehensive listing of specific crises the world is likely to face in game in the years following 2019.

  • Quarantine covers the global response to declining health and pandemic disease, including the current Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ReDS) crisis.
  • Ravenous focuses on the imminent collapse of the global food system, as well as debates over industrial vs. ecological agricultural models, and basic issues of access, energy, and carbon.
  • Power Struggle tracks the results of energy resource peaks and the shifts in international power as nations fight for energy supremacy and the world searches for alternative energy solutions.
  • Outlaw Planet embodies the volatile mix of new forms of surveillance, transparency, civil rights, and access to information as people work out new rules for human security.
  • Generation Exile follows the massive “diaspora of diasporas” underway globally, as the number of refugees and migrants skyrockets in the face of climate change, economic disruption, and war.

Keeping score

As the game is played out, three things are being tracked: how many people are playing the game, how many “survivability points” have been earned by players, and how many years are left before humans face extinction. The score is a combination of these three items – the higher the score, the longer the human race has left to live on this planet.

“Superstruct is played on forums, blogs, videos, wikis, and other familiar online spaces. We show you the world as it might look in 2019. You show us what it’s like to live there. Bring what you know and who you know, and we’ll all figure out how to make 2019 a world we want to live in.”

Filed Under: Alternatives, General News, Virtual Worlds

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