Zach Whalen's blog

I want to clarify a few things about your reading and gaming assignment for Monday. First, you need to get a version of Zork that you can play on your computer. I gave you a link to a web version, but you should only use that as a last resort. If you're a Mac user, follow the directions here. If you're on Windows, I found that the version here works pretty well, at least on XP.

Your goal with Zork is to get passed the moment Murray discusses in the chapter. As you can infer from her quotation of it, you need to find some way to go down a trap door. This is very early in the game, so it shouldn't take you long to find it.  read more »

I mentioned several things today in class which I didn't have time to show but some of you expressed interest in. I'll provide the links below. I'll also add these to the bookmarks list.

• Capital I
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRPZ-6bLC6g
• Capital I|S
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G6lwkb9lQs
• How to Win the New Yorker Caption Contest
  http://modernarthur.com/blog/christwhatanasshole.html
• How to Improve Garfield
  (long URL)
• This is note a Pipe (remix)
  http://www.threadless.com/product/543/This_is_not_a_Pipe

Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey is usually considered her most unusual work. It's generally considered a parody of gothic fiction, but it also leans toward self-parody at times. For this and other reasons, it's probably my favorite.

In the final chapter, things are looking grim for our main characters, Catherine and Henry, but with only a few pages left in the book, this paragraph appears to offer some reassurance:

Today in class I mentioned a couple of software tools I used, and I promised to provide links to them on the website. The first of these, FreeMind, is what I used to create the diagram I showed you of the relations between discourse-time and story-time. It's a pretty neat application once you get used to it. The idea is that you visually map any hierarchical structure (random thoughts, notes, writing ideas) using nodes as markers for ideas. You can add text and various icons to help keep things straight.

The second tool I mentioned is, Zotero, is, simply put, awesome.

Zotero a FireFox "add-on", a little piece of software you use to enhance the functionality of the browser. Zotero enhances Firefox by making it a robust research tool that captures bibliographic data as you browse, which is where we do most of our research these days anyway. You can store copies of web pages or PDFs in Zotero, and you can capture lots of different items from different databases. Most databases you would use throught library (WorldCat, LexisNexis, JSTOR, etc.) are recognized by Zotero.  read more »

Hello, and welcome to your website for LIT 3003: Forms of Narrative, a.k.a. Archaeologies of Story. This website will serve as a discussion platform beyond the classroom, primarily as you complete your weekly blog assignments. I will also use this course to maintain a regularly updated schedule and to post links to online resources and readings.

In order to start creating content, you first need to create your account. To your left, you should see a link to create a new account. Click on that, and you'll be on your way. Click the "read more" link below to see more specific instructions.  read more »

Test Blog entry, that's all.