“HELP! Alan and Martha are Missing in Minecraft !!” by aforgrave, on Flickr
Our two Camp Magic Macguffin co-coordinators, Alan (@cogdog) and Martha (@mburtis), have gone missing in Minecraft. News is sketchy at this point, but it would appear that they vanished at or near the surface to a “ZoneStone Mine” at the border between our world and that of Minecraft, during a series of explosions at or about 19:20 EDT on July 30th. If you have not yet seen it, you may wish to view the news video feed embedded at the bottom of this post. (Caution: May upset some viewers.)
We are marshalling support for our colleagues at this moment. If you can provide assistance of any kind, please add your information to this form.
We are all hoping for the safe and soon return of our beloved friends.
The following news feed provides further details surrounding the disappearance of Alan and Martha. (Again, some images may be disturbing.)
We will be using the tag #106lostinminecraft in aid of the search proceedings.
12:03 PM July 31st Update: Close viewing of this artifact seems to reveal a number of “loops” in the video feed, frequently accompanied by an out-of-sync audio commentary. In the simplest explanation, it may be that our colleagues were somehow spirited away PRIOR to the apparent explosion, and their likenesses remained visible due to the re-played images. In a more chilling, yet possible explanation, Alan and Martha may have been caught within some kind of “Moebius effect,” often implicated within looping or repeating instances of time.
The Moebius Reflux Wave majestically sweeping over and returning Earth home. by Stamp
These will most definitely not be my last daily creates, but just for camp they will be.
This first one was to draw a flower with my eyes closed…
I think it looks pretty good, kinda abstract. I’m an artist what can I say lol
For the second one we had to record a short audio clip of water. I blasted on the good old kitchen sink and just recorded the water running. It has a very unique sound I think, really. Its not like the bathroom sink, or you pouring out water into a cup- its water hitting the steel of the sink… in the kitchen. Just take a listen for yourself…
For the last one it was “you are what you eat”, we had to draw a figure of ourselves with food somehow. I was eating some Jalepeno Cheddar Cheetos and sour watermelon rings (I know I’m such a health freak… but thats how I keep my body looking so fit). It was the PERFECT choice too.
Hard to believe, but this is my final letter home. I made a video, so that I can remember this moment exactly. This week was really fun, and bittersweet.
For my final digital story I decided to do like a hybrid format. At first I was thinking a video, but I realized that recently I had been doing TONS of videos and audio creations. Writing has and will always be a strong storytelling tool, so I wrote it out. Of course with embedding links, videos, and tweets in it lol. The evolution of storytelling is shown through it I feel. How its no longer sentences, but videos, tweets, pictures on flickr, material from different blogs. It is so lively. I really went crazy with my story though, but hey- isn’t that what DS106 is all about? …
There you have it. My final video home. It was really tough shutting that camera off. I’ve come to realize that I’m a DS106er #4life as Martha so puts it. I plan to continue to be active when I can. Even if its something as simple as a daily create here and there. I also plan to do something else for DS106, BUT I won’t give that away. If it falls through though I’ll blog it, and hopefully ALL DS106ers will know about it
This course has been a real game changer for me. I feel like despite set backs throughout it- from work to family issues- my directors really helped me get through everything. They were understanding and showed me that it all really was about MY journey. And I’m proud to say I got through it to the end. All my work on here is a representation of who I am; they are all pieces of my views, experiences, and personality.
I created this assignment, for the Mash Up section. I would say this assignment is worth 3-4 stars. Go through all your DS106 videos and create a blooper reel!
I went through the old unedited videos I had, and I had tons of mishaps and taken out parts. I put them all together and got this awesome final product…
Tutorial:
1. Open all old video files that might or could have some mess-ups in them. For camp or otherwise.
2. Upload them into a video editor ( I used VideoPad)
3. snip through the ‘good’ stuff, and keep all the funny moments, mess-ups, and behind the scenes material.
4. Mix them up all together in random order. Slow scenes down, speed them up, give them special affects as you please.
5. Add an introductory title to your reel
6. Post and enjoy!!
This Assignment really ment a lot to me. It was a reminder of all the fun I had during DS106, and was very funny to watch. I love bloopers from films that I watch, so I figured why wouldn’t I have bloopers myself?!
The movie that I decided to critiqued is My Fair Lady, it is a film made in 1964 staring Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle (one of my favorite actresses), and Rex Harrison as Professor Henry Higgins. My Fair Lady is a drama, family and musical. After reading Roger Ebert’s article “How to Read a Movie” I’ve concluded that he was right in his analysis of films. In the this scene you will notice that the camera starts off on the main females character, who is an absolutely lovely person, then it begans to rotates left to a least favoribe person. Which Ebert says “in simplistic terms: Right is more positive, left more negative. Movement to the right seems more favorable; to the left, less so.”
In this scene you will see what Ebert was talking about when he said, “Movement is dominant over things that are still.”
Over all in my opinion this movie was very well made. I am not a fan of musicals, but after seeing this movie when I was a child, I would watch it anytime, anywhere. The relation between the two characters is very funny, which gives the movie a comic edge, but we all know there can not be a movie involving a male and female role without a touch of drama. Also, it is a very family friendly movie, because it was made in the time where family friendly meant family friendly.
What you are about to see is based on a true story.
It was Jasmine’s first time at camp, so she really didn’t know what to expect. Arriving at camp seemed normal enough, but she noticed a few of the counselors were acting a bit strange, but her counselor seemed to be the only normal one, with a welcoming message (I guess she knew what her occupation was).
So she thought to herself about the rest of them, “Oh well they are probably as unwilling as I am to be here.” Jasmine’s first few weeks at camp were fun. She even started her camping duties early.
Which made camp a little bit better. However Jasmine started noticing things disappearing from her suitcase.
Jasmine was thinking to herself that these are weird things to steal, but to each their own. Camp seemed pretty fun. It was still a lot for a city girl to take in, and on top of that she and nature have not been the best of friends, with that being said she stilled tried to embrace it. With her tooth brush, hair brush and socks missing, she decided to just embrace the wild look while at camp.
Which proved to be very cost efficient. It was week 5 at camp when Jasmine noticed Alan’s inability to remember somethings. So she decided to retrace his steps. After a few days of playing super sleuth, she realized that he had been spending time near shed 4, which Jasmine was told not go near. The curiosity became to much to handle where Jasmine found herself spying on Shed 4. Where she noticed Marco the grounds keeper, keeping tabs on her. She then confronted him, asking him why he was following her around. And he replied, “This land is rightfully my family’s, be careful where you poke your nose, you know what they say about curiosity and the cat.
Jasmine gave up the hunt for few days, and decided to try to focus back on camp, but all these questions kept circling her mind….. “Why would they have camp if areas where off limits? Why are camp leaders suffering from memory loss and why are counselors acting strange. No matter who she followed, everything she seemed to uncover lead back to shed #4. So on Friday the 13th of July, she decided to take matters into her own hands and solve the mysterious occurances happening all around camp herself.
Upon entering the shed, Jasmine had to fight off every attack from her conscious telling her to flea, but she ignored it. Jasmine entered into the shed, just to have the door slam being her. All of a sudden this noise filled the air, and made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on edge.
Jasmine then ran towards the door, bursting threw it, in a panic trying to get back to the safety of her bunk house.
After getting back to her Bunk House Jasmine spoke of what occurred to no one. Hoping that nobody was aware of what she did, anxiously awaiting for camp to be over, and praying that her secret remained just that, a secret.
On May 21, 2012 I started on what would be one of my most interesting college experiences. I was a little nervous, but also excited. Little did I know what I was getting into though.
Week 1 of camp went by pretty smooth, everyone was really nice and welcoming. We got introduced to all this new technology and sites. SoundCloud, flickr, twitter, the works. It was all cool.
Week 2 we had to setup our sites and WordPress. We got introduced and more acquainted with very interesting characters. Our counselors were a very diverse and interesting crowd. Some of them seemed weird to me, but who was I to judge. And some of the people at camp had odd names like “Hatchet jack” , “Joe Beets” , and “Slide Guy!”. I began to question if all of them were even real people. Oddly enough though, Alan had dissapeared from camp and Martha seemed really worried. Things were starting to get weird, he was being dodgy. But don’t take my word for it see for yourself…
All of this was very unsettling. And I remember even earlier Alan mentioning something about an ELECTRIC FENCE?!! Why would we need an electric fence… at camp? Despite All these weird going-ons, I overlooked them. I was enjoying myself at camp, was very bogged down with my UMW course as well as my camp assignments.
Week 3 focused on visual assignments, which was awesome. I think I discovered a new passion for photography, but also discovered that there really was more going on at camp than meets the eye. In the councelor video for that week, Martha (this was when they THOUGHT they were off air) was clearly frustrated and thrown off. She still hadn’t seen Alan. And he was so indifferent to it, he could see her upset, and just threw her off. There video kept going through all this weird electric interference as if there session was being tapped or something. It was then I decided to keep an eye/ear/monitor open to stuff, thinking I could figure out what was going on. What was in that sachel that Alan had anyway??
I also noticed tension between members. “Jim Groom” who I’ve heard through rumors was some kind of DS106 Guru, maybe even the creator was being a bit of a jerk as well. One of the councelors seemed to be very outspoken though, towards him and anyone who was acting up.
No checks and balances of directors’ power in @MagicMacguffin-where are the critical thinkers? It’s not camp-it’s a bloodsucking vamp #ds106
I think it wasn’t in her best interest to do so though now that I look back on it…
Week 4 we started on our Design stuff. These assignments were getting tougher, but I enjoyed them. My creative juices were really flowing. But things were still off, I noticed Martha was still complaining that she hadn’t seen Alan in 2 weeks. What kind of directors don’t see each other in 2 weeks?! Alan kept making these claims of working in shed #4 w/ “Marco”. What was in shed #4 anyways? and why did it seem so off limits to Martha? Alan kept acting really goofy too, like he was high or something. He kept making a joke out of everything and just brushed Martha’s inquiries aside.
That week Zazzy the cooky councelor completely dissapeared off the blogging map. Her last blog post was June 14 – a Thursday. Last she was talking about some bad sloppy joes she had eaten and was just all kinds of off. I then noticed that others were beginning to dissapear too. Councelors, campers… it was all weird. Even Hatchet Jack, who I thought was in on some weird consipiracy dissapeared the same day as Zazzy. His last tweet:
@hotnzazzy Hatchet Jack is afraid of mines and caves. When Jack was a youngster he went in cave & he can’t talk about it. Ever. Ever. #ds106
At this point I was nervous, and slightly scared. I decided to continue to stay low key and just blog along like I was unaware of anything. Better to play it safe, and assume the role of the dummy.
Week 5 we started on audio assignments. Which was really outside my comfort zone, but I went with it. I was being challenged day in and day out to be more and more creative in different ways. Alan also claimed to have fell down some hole, and went missing for 4 days. He tried convincing Martha that he didn’t have cell phone reception so couldn’t call her, yet he had his laptop with him! He even used the internet to blog… if he did that, why didn’t he use the internet to tweet for help? I wasn’t buying it, and neither was Martha. She was furious at this point. I was a bit afraid that she would dissapear too.
Week 6 was a continuation of our audio unit. Campers were cranking out creations every day. It was awesome, we got hit by a crazy storm and lost power for days. Some, but not all of us apparently. After I got my electricity back (after 5 days of torture!) I dug up some videos. Peep this ….
Martha got Alan to take her to Shed #4!! How did she go from not seeing any wiring or electricity or ANYTHING but dirt and mold… to just going along with everything?! What was it that Alan showed her? I was getting frustrated at this point, while we were jollily making radio shows…. crazy stuff was going on at camp. I wasn’t going to be a sitting duck, I made it a point to get to the buttom of everything. But all in due time…
Week 7 and 8 we did video assignments at camp. Those 2 weeks were the most time comsuming and busy. We really were creatively challenged. And I feel like all the campers really went all out with there work. Funny thing was it was during those 2 weeks that I uncovered the strangest stuff. I noticed Martha itching her neck, it looked as if something had punctured it. She was no longer herself either, going along with everything. Almost coming off as robotic, she was also very very paranoid it seemed. Always looking around, what had those CVI guys done to her? The beloved, opinionated, fiery Martha was gone. I knew it for sure. The lake was sometimes glowing, a weird orangish color. I saw a video I think i wasn’t supose to of Martha telling Alan that she got “orange glow” on her, but washed it off. Alan just reassured her that they said there were no side effects. Who was they? – the CVI guys?
At this point I found out that Martha was going to Shed #4 a lot, almost like she was obsessed with it. I remembered though Alan telling her weeks ago that it was only recommended to be in there once a day for a short period of time. Rumors of a spaceship sighting in the lake were also circulating, as well as sightings of Alan at Arizona and up north. What CVI some government thing? Dealing with Aliens or something? Why is such a huge company investing so heavily into little old Camp Magic Macguffin and our directors?
Week 9 was remix week. My creative paradigm was completely restructured. It was an amazing week for camp, our creativity was at unimaginable levels. I noticed a lot of feedback and praise from Alan too. I noticed that he paid particular attention to my camp activities, much more so that Martha. Was Martha mad at me? or did she not like my work? I was questioning the situation. Soon enough though I would find out the truth.
This is the end of week 10. I don’t really know what will happen to me after this post. I think that they might be on to me at this point, and if they aren’t… well they sure as hell are going to be after seeing this. Alan has been commenting on my stuff like crazy, NOT because he likes it. But because it is fueling camp. Even “Martha” did so too. Not in a metaphorical way, in a literal one. I lost my glasses going down the tunnel, and almost got caught doing this. But it was well worth it, the WORLD needs to know the TRUTH!!
I may not have all the answers, but I know enough now. And this should be enough for you too, don’t get too deep. These things never end well my friends.
My only wish: If they manage to do me in, may I go toThug Mansion Blog Mansion.
The assignment I decided to do for this tutorial was the one I created. The assignment is to get a picture of your favorite superhero. For example:
Batman, Spiderman, Catwoman, Storm, Thor, Captain America.. ect. Upload it to flickr and then tag it in a post and tell us in 2-5 sentences on who your superhero is and why.
How to Do:
1. google images of your favorite Super Hero!
2. Save them to your computer.
3. Go to your flickr and upload the picture, after wards go to your site and upload it.
4. Write 2-5 sentences telling why this is you favorite super hero and then upload it
For my very first assignment creation I decided to be about superheros. The assignement is to upload apiture of your favorite superhero and tell why in 2-5 sentences. I choose (you guessed it) Cat Woman!!!!
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The reason that I choose Cat Woman, is because she is super sassy. She also has a little bit of villain in her. It’s like shes a good guy without being too good, and I love it. Plus her costume is awesome and she gets to hang out with Batman. I feel like she was my role model when I was little, I had my Cat woman figurines and everything!
Camp is now over (see the final story. If you are craving an experience like this, head over to ds106 and see how to participate. For more on the Summer of Magic Macguffin, see.....
