An Good Con

Thanks everyone for a great con. It was great to see you all - it's been too long. A friend of mine from Cambridge forwarded me this link and I thought I'd share - be sure to have eaten a lot of food before you read on.

Hey Steve, I'm not Steve!

wtfsomeonehackedmyshit!


Animal vs. Buddy Riiiiiiich

Done with the Spreadsheet

38 entries. Although some games like Incan Gold and Cash n' Guns I had aggregated entries due to their brevity.

In other news, my Father needed some information and I sent an email to him. David was apparently charged with using that information because I received the following email body text from my Father's account:

COCKS COCKS COCKS
OMG WTFPWNT someone hacked my shit
SPACEBARISFORJUMPINGINFPSGAMESIMHO
ty for the email

Less QQ, More Pew Pew

Sweet. Never a dull moment with that kid.

D>M>

Uggg... Okay added some more entries. I will finish the rest tomorrow.

I just wanted to give another shout-out to Denis. Jeebus, Pump. The miniatures you painted for me are incredible. I keep looking at them and finding more remarkable detail. It's like those drink ads from the '80s where if you look at the ice you can see little naked women and stuff in them. I think it's sort of like that, somehow. Anyway they're awesome.

I enjoyed having lots of people at the con and having two rooms to house them in!

Enron, hurry up with the rest of those entries on the at game spreadsheet... I'm eager to start filling in my recollections before I forget everything!!!

Wow. Check THIS new technology from Microsoft out, due to be released at the end of this year. Incredible.

SURFACE

I asked Michelle what she uses for her Poetry projects and she gave me the following ideas:

Sting: I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying (Irony, paradox, juxtaposition)
Tori Amos: Home on The Range (Allusion, compare/contrast with traditional interpretation)
Don Mclean: Bye Bye Miss American Pie (symbolism & allusion)
Be Good Tanyas: The Junkie Song (imagery, symbolism)

Lorenna McKennitt does a lot of poems as songs, even some Shakespeare, Yeats.

The one she uses a lot is the Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll.. tons of onomatopoeia, alliteration, narrative, rhyme scheme. She has the students try to reinterpret it into their own words and has to be grammatically correct (i.e., nouns for nouns, adjectives for adjectives.. etc, etc)

Here's some idears -

DAVID BOWIE - Some awesome lyrics in songs like: Life On Mars (dont know the english class term for it, but there's a line "Now the workers have struck for fame
'Cause Lennon's on sale again" which can be either John Lennon or Lenin the commie guy - whatever the fuck that term is called), Ziggy Stardust (get the Guitar Hero cred too, but narrative), Space Oddity ("ground control to major tom" - some alienation shit in there, allusion? u use big words ryan), etc... lots there.

Lemme steal Eric's format:
Alliteration:

Allusion:

Imagery:

Narrative: Easy one is Hurricane by Dylan (story of the boxer wrongly accused of murder, turned into recentish movie); Ryan Adams song Carolina Rain (whole little story - i love it, but u might lose cool points with the kids.)

Repetition:

Rhyme Scheme:

Simile:

Oh man, harder than I thought... I'll edit in any shit I find - gettin side-tracked rockin out.

dude. theres millions of songs like that! i guess it depends on how "cool" u wanna seem to your students. i dont want to make u look like a square. :(

Immediate, Off-the-Cuff Responses

Without forethought, I give you the following (of course you could just name any Bad Religion song, except Frogger, and prolly have like 4 of these in it:

Alliteration: Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap - AC/DC?
Allusion: Thank You - Descendents
Imagery: Anything by Cannibal Corpse, Meat Hook Sodomy, Hammer Smashed Face, I Cum Blood - they are all winners!
Narrative: Seventh Son of A Seventh Son, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, any Iron Maiden. Too easy!
Repetition: Rock n' Roll HS - Ramones. Most Ramones songs would fit the bill, this is a good one though. Very repetitive! A lot of 50's Do-Wap stuff too.
Rhyme Scheme: Magic Johnson - Chili Peppers. They swear and stuff, but there is some interesting rhythmic timing differences throughout the song.
Simile: Emma - Alkaline Trio. The beginning of the verses are a veritable lesson plan of what simile is.

Calling all members of The Action Team: I need your assistance!

I am doing this lesson on poetry for my class. The students for their final will be putting together a poetry packet. We will first be defining many literary terms, among them: alliteration, allusion, analogy, imagery, juxtaposition, metaphor, narrative, repetition, rhyme scheme, simile, symbol, etc. (sorry if I just made your brain hurt). One part of their project is choosing a song and showing in the lyrics where some of these terms come up. I wanted to give them some examples of songs (2-3), but I am having a hell of a time coming up with songs.

Do any of you have suggestions? I know that I will probably get some non-serious responses, but I could really use your help. Pls thx!

Rad convention. Got home a little while ago and all the lack of sleep and abundance of shit-food just hit me in the face. UGH.

Sorry about the alarm of death this morning Eric! Jon, thanks so much for the Battlestation love! Thanks everyone - was a lot of fun.

ART: That clip you posted of the guy doing the wank-off thing, I made that joke this weekend and everyones all "What!?!?!" So I'm relinking Art's funny video so now you assholes better watch it and enjoy! Art's Funny Jerkit vid