Daily Entertainment.

[ofthefamily]

Screw it; fourth-wall breakdown.

---

Carlisle is staring up at the all-white ceiling, arguing with an unseen voice.

"You know I have work I could be doing?"

"What, shagging your wife?"

"That's not work. I'm due at the hospital."

"What do you mean, 'that's not work'? Don't you take pride in your efforts? I'm sure Esme would appreciate it more."

"Don't make me come up there."

Comments

[gotham-knocking.livejournal.com]

He's on one of those really advanced Does Everything phones that don't exist in his time.

"Listen...Didio, right?...I know you have two Gotham Gazette one-shots coming out. And that Vicki is gonna be in them. Why not me? It's about time I entered the DCU."

"Um," the voice at the other end says, "who are you are again?"

"Alexander Knox. I was in the first Batman film."

"I don't remember any reporters. Were you on the board of Bruce's company? At his birthday party?"

"The FIRST first film. With Keaton. By Burton."

"Oh. Right." A pause. "And you were a reporter...well, we already have Vicki."

"You need me, for balance. For the common man approach. She's many things, but she is not common."

"We're booked. We have Bullock, Spoiler, it's a full house."

"Spoiler...why didn't you say so? She and me are buds. We can team up."

The line goes dead.

"Jerk," Knox mutters as he looks for Joe Quesada's number. Maybe the Bugle is hiring.

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle listens to Knox with not so much concern for Knox's troubles as relief that he's not the only one in this strange room.

"Does this happen to you a lot?"

[wakeupnew]

A girl, bright-eyed and probably too cheerful considering how long she's been awake, sits back with a very large bucket of popcorn.

"This?" She beams (and completely misses her mouth with a bite of popcorn, but -- shh.) "This is gonna be good."

[mm-heather.livejournal.com]

"I'm glad you think so," says the girl who is trying to look as inconspicuous as possible.

Her guilty eyedarting is probably not helping her facade of innocence at all.

>_>

[innerbrat]

"You know," remarks the palaeontologist, "I think this time I might be safe. I haven't done anything mean and bad to anyone in Milliways for ages."



"Yeah," fills in a voice from too close behind her, like someone with ninja killer skills had turns up behind her without making a sound and was now leaning right over her hair, talking in her ear.

"That's 'cause you've been busy messing with that other me. I know what you're up to."

Debi freezes, not looking behind her.

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle uncurls a finger, pointing behind the woman's shoulder.

"Do you always have a woman wielding an axe like that behind you?"

[yankeedoodle_dr]

Hawkeye Pierce is whistling, loudly, and happily watching chaos enfold with a kimono over his uniform.

(It's red and shiny.)

He likes these days.

[ofthefamily]

"You sound happy."

Carlisle just looks confused.

"Come here often?"

[gorgonfondness]

"Another one of these?" is all Mia can say when she notices the back room.

[kitchen-zen.livejournal.com]

"Yup, another one of these," says Aura on her way to work. But hey, at least this means she doesn't have to teach for a while.

When did gaming start reflecting life, anyway?

[themidnightson]

Edward, with body glitter in his hair, pokes the white wall.

[no_justice]

Did the Raven get you too?

[campkilkare]

The glasses will make most people under 40 (and all Chinese people--this has been demonstrated) think of "Harry Potter" (Ha Li Bo De!!!). He prefers to think of them as John Lennon glasses. The beard is definitely more Lennon than Potter; it's not so much a beard as what happens when you don't bother to shave for a while, although it has actually been cut since January, when it was fairly epic.

Because he's going to lunch with Batya soon, he's actually dressed at this hour of the morning; unusual for a night-shift worker. (He had last night off, so he's ambulatory.) Clean sweater over t-shirt, blue jeans that are battered and faded beyond the reach even of the professional blue-jean agitators at Hot Topic, and tennis shoes just this side of total disintegration.

Blue eyes, very dull very dark brown hair, with red and blonde in the beard, inexplicably. After six months back on shift work he's the thinnest he's been since high school, which means still soft around the edges. Height hovering around six feet, when he stands up straight, which is never. Right now he's in a fluffy red office chair, the only comfortable piece of furniture he owns. Silver wedding ring.

"No," he says. "I don't to do these. These are one of the things I don't do."

[ofthefamily]

The voice in the ceiling saw fit to give Carlisle a barstool upon which to perch.

Elbow to knee, hand to chin. "If you find the door, let me know, please."

[djcati.livejournal.com]

Short dark blonde girl sitting on her messenger bag in the corner. Occasionally lifting up her laptop to block the cookies being thrown at her by the pilot and teenage spy.

"You should just go pack," advises the red-haired Jedi apprentice on his own datapad beside her.

"That would be admitting defeat..."

[betagainstme]

"Packing?" The not-much taller girl looks suitably interested. "Where are you going?"

[noattachments]

Kate comes through the door, opens her mouth in surprise, and then promptly steps backward again, closing the door almost all the way once she's out.

There's no sign or anything on it, so she comes back in a second later, looking around with a wary kind of interest.

"I don't think I signed up for this."

[mm-heather.livejournal.com]

"None of us did."

KAAAAAAAAAAAATE

Heather won't make any "Lost" references. Really. REALLY.

She might have to bite her tongue clean off, but she will not say anything —

"So, Jack or Sawyer?"

... oops.

[innermuses.livejournal.com]

And because it had to be done...

The door to the backroom opens, and almost immediately shuts. Not, however before the following loud complaint can be heard:

"Nuh uh, no way, sis. I ain't breaking any freaking fourth wall. I'm Deadshot. Deadshot. This shit's for losers.

"Just give me and Slade two minutes alone with that freak. That's all I'm asking..."

[accipiterpuella.livejournal.com]

"Get your ass in here," comes a very, very displeased voice that mingles a strained attempt to be polite and an outright snarl. "If I have to put up with this, so do you."

The door is tugged.

[red-pajamas.livejournal.com]

"Huh."

"My Spidey-sense is tingling."

[mnt_raph]

"Aww crap. There goes the neighborhood."

[ever_lovin]

A very nervous secretary at Marvel is on her phone. "Mr. Quesada sir? Is Mr. Hitch still meeting with you? Yes I have a Mr. Grimm here and he would like to speak with you both. Umm he's standing right in front of me, I can't tell him you're not here. Yes he heard that."

[gammagammahey.livejournal.com]

"Make that Mr. Grimm and Ms. Walters. Ms. Walters would like to speak to Mr. Quesade and Mr. Loeb."

[minkhollow]

A twenty-something girl (jeans and pajama top), carrying a Tupperware thing of chili - the hell with Lent, she's got iron to replace - walks in and has a look around.
"...Guys, did we break LJ again?"

[bcgphoenix]

Phoenix made the mistake of wearing a fleece sweater to work today. A very, very static-y fleece sweater that attracts scraps of paper like a magnet.

She tumbles in, bits of Japanese tissue flaking off of her sleeves, and immediately scrambles to her feet, clutching her travel mug of tea (raspberry black today) like a life preserver. Another scrap of tissue flutters out of her hair when she irritably swats it aside.

And then, undaunted -- except for the part where she has to go back to work in ten minutes, but never mind that -- she vaults onto the nearest couch, tucks her tea under one arm, cups her hands around her mouth, and bellows:

"HAS ANYBODY SEEN MY KEYS?"

[52-dropoff.livejournal.com]

"Try under the coffee table, in your purse a second time, all your coat pockets, next to the tea cozy, and in the bathroom." He's a good amateur detective. His advice should help. We hope.

[kemo_soggy]

"............Oh, come on, I'm not even supposed to be here yet."
He looks around for a moment, trying not to drip on anything important.
"That said, anyone know where I can get more than one icon? Typist here can't screencap what's online."
(The typist looks over from her chili and mumbles something about the pause button on Hulu popping up in the middle of the screen not helping matters.)

[camwyn]

"Oh, jeez."

This, in Cam's admittedly limited experience, is Not A Good Sign.

[mnt_mike]

"Aaaah the dulcet sound of someone's Famous Last Words."

[spiffynamehere.livejournal.com]

Tinything inna Eeyore sweatshirt meeps.

"I'm gonna die painfully, aren't I?"

[hapan-heiress.livejournal.com]

There's a small redheaded princess looking at her, head tilted. Her arms cradle her stuffed animals to her chest. "Why?"

[prix-etoile.livejournal.com]

"Ahahahahahaha." The tall blond lolz to herself in the corner, running a hand through her short hair. It's a bad day, but this just makes it all better.

Sort of. Alice is pretty cool, leaning against the wall and Kyle's shoulder, chatting in French as the mun tries to keep up.

Inyri is glowering at her. That's a bit scary...mainly because Kyle's not sure what she's done to Inyri lately to deserve that. :/

Kaelyn and Ellia are climbing all over the mun...not that she minds. Kira seems to enjoy the time away from the twins as she and Wanda have a srs conversation (maybe about destroying universes) and Jim snoozes in the corner.


It's loud over here :/

[mnt_mike]

So explain to me again why this is happening now?

"Why what is happening now?"

"She means, why're we here. Now."

"Oh that's easy. Because she has time sensitive stuff that needs doing."

"Kinda sad, ain't it? That she'd rather play with our lives rather than get a move on her own."

"That is kind of sad. Heck, it's not even kind of sad, it's just sad sad."

You know, the two of you aren't really helping.

"We know."

"Damn shame you can't apply for school by sendin' in some of our stories."

Oh yeah, that's just what higher education is looking for: People who have a long history of writing Not-Turtle Smut. You're a real big help, there Raph.

Breaking The Internet's Fourth Wall: Internet, Meta, and Cyberculture

[kotorjedi-amaya.livejournal.com]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

THE META IN MY LIFE I CANNOT TAKE IT ANY MORE

Okay, from the beginning:

We have to give an Intro to Public Speaking class next week, and I had a speech all set up for Art in Video Games - all I had to do was write an introduction and conclusion. Then, my professor showed us a video with Neil Postman examining cyberspace from a meta perspective, which got me thinking about that and cyberpunk, because there's a lot of ideas that are the same. His thesis was something along the lines of 'we change ourselves depending on what media we present to, and our consciousness lives in that media at the time. We're altered irrevocably by media we interact with...' and so on. The speech, in text, is here (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/cyberspace/cyberspace_7-25.html).

So that, of course, gets me thinking--I gabbed to my public speaking professor for about 20 minutes after class about Snow Crash, cyberspace and the different levels and ideas presented in that novel. All well and good, I've got my topic, right?

Not exactly. I was on YouTube with a friend, and we were looking at videos. I became curious about Fair Use with YouTube's new audio policies, so I looked that up, as well as relevant court cases, aspiring legal scholar that I am. Very interesting stuff! So that's neat and everything.

My friend then links an article from the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/opinion/25blount.html?_r=3) on Twitter of which the general gist is, "Kindle 2 might be illegal because they're not selling audio rights for audiobooks, since their text-to-speech software sounds much like the human voice."

So, to conclude (sometimes known as tl;dr), everything on the Internet that I keep viewing just in my normal daily habits is re-enforcing what's going through my consciousness right now. That being that the Internet is a) as Neil Postman postulates, it irrevocably changes who we are, b) it is a medium that has integrated itself so seamlessly into our lives that we don't even realize exactly how much it connects even pieces of our traditionally "offline" lives because of the information we internalize via it as a medium, c) the information we view over the internet is in-and-of-itself governed by law and policies which are themselves influenced by the internet, and made freely available on the internet by ourselves, for ourselves.

The Internet is then reinforcing those same concepts that I'm trying to formulate, as I'm attempting to formulate these ideas. So, in answer to Postman's question, "Am I using this technology, or is it using me?" the answer is all of the above.

(12:16:34 PM) anomalousmatls: ...I might end up just giving a speech on this day as a QED
(12:16:42 PM) anomalousmatls: Or morning, even
(12:16:57 PM) shinyhappygoth: It'd be an interesting basis for a speech!
(12:17:12 PM) anomalousmatls: It's craaaaaaaaaaaaaazy
(12:17:16 PM) anomalousmatls: I swear
(12:17:25 PM) anomalousmatls: I'm going to go blog about it
(12:17:30 PM) anomalousmatls: ARGGGGG WHICH IS EVEN WORSE

[spiffynamehere.livejournal.com]

IN SOVIET RUSSIA, THE INTERNET USES YOU.

[sdelmonte]

Peers in, looking for a break from a busy day, and a busy week, and a busy month, and...you get the idea.

HALP.

[mmexlibris]

There's a woman duct taped to a chair, bound from shoulders to ankles. Her eyes are wide and she can barely breathe through her nose, as there's a piece of duct tape over her mouth. There's a cardboard box sitting in her lap, plainly wrapped in brown paper. It may be ticking. JESUS WEPT WHOSE BRILLIANT IDEA WAS THIS!?

Fiona stands over her with an almost empty roll of tape in her hand. "Here's your duct tape lesson. Don't fuck with me. Milliways is hard enough to cope with, without you dabbling about with my heart like it's some kind of fucking cat toy."

"Max would shake his finger at you and demand an apology. Me? I think I'm going to see what you look like as a fine pink mist."

Fiona tosses away the tape and pulls out a cellphone, dialing it with one thumb. "Here's a little trick I picked up in Baghdad. You'll love this ringtone."

[spider-may.livejournal.com]

"-He-eeeeeeey," says the potential Spider-Girl passing by. "That's not really nice, you know? I'm a big fan of working out your aggression in solid ways, but I think you could benefit a lot from an open line of communication."

[alchemistseraph]

The normally curly hair is slicked back in frustration, pen stuck into the ponytail holder. The pen is thankfully not yet chewed on. "Bloody midterms. Why today?" Note, not this week. The mun's professors decided to get together and do a really good impression of a jackass schedule is messed up.

The twenty-one-year-old student looking so frustrated doesn't really notice which door she'd going through. She should be in her second history classroom.

It takes a minute to realize she's not. Excuse her, she's just going to be over here twitching for a few minutes.

[mr_gaeta]

"Uh."

Frak, just when Gaeta's getting used to Milliways, this turns up.

[bcgphoenix]

Poink.

A paper airplane, with the words OPEN ME scrawled across the wings, hits Gaeta in the back of the head.

On the other side of the room, Phoenix studiously -- and innocently -- goes back to searching for her keys.