The text we were asked to read (or, rather, to experience) for class this week evoked from me a completely unique feeling. In my academic writings I try to stay away from talking about feelings; however, the light of the computer screen, the sounds, and the images of this week's assigned experiences gave me a feeling completely different from how academic work usually makes me feel. I took such great joy in the pretty little buttons in "The Lucky Ones;" buttons which turned into tiny exploding supernovae when I moved my mouse over them.

The content of "The Lucky Ones" was fun and interesing. I found the short films Jim Jarmusch-y because of the many idiosyncratic reflections on life; however, "The Lucky Ones" did not leave me with any intellectual revelations. The website was funny and entertaining. It was reminiscent of homestarrunner.com, a website which has provided me with countless hours of fun; yet I get the feeling that "The Lucky Ones" is doing more than Homestar Runner. However, I could not put my finger on what, if anything,"The Lucky Ones" was trying to say.

The biggest question I had (and forgive me if I missed something big either in the media or on the website) was: is this supposed to be marketing? I thought that these short films and their interactive supplements may be an appeal to the sort of folk who enjoy Jim Jarmusch films, but that was all I could really come up with. Maybe "The Lucky Ones" was just another foray into slinging vehicles, as it were.

"Same Day Test" is a more coherent narrative, mostly because it lacks the sound, color, and degree of interactivity that "The Lucky Ones" has. The "choose your own adventure" style of "Same Day Test" functions on many different levels to engage both the interest of the reader and the reader's own emotions regarding the subject matter. Both "The Lucky Ones" and "Same Day Test" evoke a more deeply emotional response from the experiencer because of the interactive nature of their delivery. For me, these web-texts, including the Hamlet role-playing game, mix my scholarly interests with forms of entertainment I do not usually consider intellectually based. Even blogging for class rather than handing in Word documents evokes from me a different style of writing--I write in a style closer to that which I use in my own blog, or in my emails, rather than the style I use in printed Word documents.

I've been lead to the conclusion that the media with which text is created is very influential on the feeling or mood of the text. While I have interpreted this as "less academic" and "more entertaining," it is important to acknowledge the rhizomatic growth of this form of media. While we didn't come across any immediate allusions to canonical critical theorists or Victorian poets, we experienced themes and feeling relevant to the world we are living in right now.

-Lori