Bunny Blog

Friend Lists.

I’ve been using these for a while, but nobody seems to know what I’m talking about so I thought I’d let the word out. If you have more than 100 friends on Facebook, and you’re having trouble filtering the status updates of your very best friends from the people you met in the elevator, friend lists are AWESOME.

On your facebook homepage, look on the left column that starts with “News Feed.” You can already filter things down so that you just see “Photos” or “Links” or “Status Updates” rather than have all of them feed into your newsfeed.

Ok, now click on the “more” text at the very bottom of this column. Now more filters pop up, along with text at the very bottom that reads “Create New List.” Click that. Now you can choose which friends and fan pages will belong to that list. For instance, I’ve made one called “Comedians” where I put all my friends that have funny status updates. Now I can click on that, and only see updates of those particular people

What’s also great is that you can also use friend lists with your privacy settings. Would you rather coworkers not see your photo album from Vegas? Your privacy settings let you make certain photo albums available only to friends of friends, or only to people you’re personally friends with, or to THIS list, or to everybody except THAT list. It’s really pretty powerful.

Paris drunk in Vegas

Also, when you make new friends, you can immediately add them to pre-existing lists. So when my Aunt finally joins Facebook, I can put her on my “Relatives” list at the same time I accept her Facebook “friendship.”

Anyway, just felt most people weren’t getting the most out of this feature.

I’m going to keep this post short, so that I feel the joy of instant gratification upon completing it, and so that You, the Reader, feel that same joy as well.

I’m always blown away at how effective Instant Gratification is.  I was reminded of this first hand this weekend when playing Call of Duty.

Back in the good-ol’-days of gaming, online multiplayer first person shooters were just that: online first person shooters you could play with other people.  End of story.

While I’m sure Call of Duty is not the first to do this (or maybe they are - I’m not researching this to keep with the Instant Gratification theme, which is journalistically irresponsible of me, but then again, I’m not a journalist), they’ve done a brilliant thing by adding unlockables to the muliplayer version of the game: adding Instant Gratification to an aspect of the game that never had any before (aside from instantly taking out Fred with a bazooka every now and then).  Instead of just playing with your friends, you’re also getting the added game experience of leveling up, as if you were playing the single player version of the game.   Play for a bit, shoot enough dudes in the head, and BAM!  You unlock a laser sight for your sniper rifle.  Brilliant.

Instant gratification is important in gaming because it keeps people coming back for more, and it keeps them locked in while they’re playing.  By keeping the goal JUST out of reach (”If I play one more round, I’ll level up!”), you have a proverbial carrot dangling from the end of the joystick (or controller).

And I was definitely not expecting this level of I.G. in the multiplayer version of Call of Duty.  Not only do you level up, unlocking different styles of play, but you can also level up on specific weapons, unlocking that all-important silencer you need so badly so the baddies don’t see you on their radars.  Between leveling up as a character and leveling up on other aspects of the game, you’re rewarded in nearly every match you play.

Or if not this one, then the next one…

Slasher Films for Slasher Budgets: Making Microbudget Horror

How does the horror genre differ from any other in terms of what you should cut (slice, hack, chop) from your indie budget? Leaders in the indie horror realm spill their guts (and those of their victims) while discussing how to produce successful horror films on limited means. Audiences beware…

If you follow sports at all, you can’t have missed the news recently about pitcher Mark Buehrle’s perfect game for the White Sox – a remarkable feat that’s only been done 18 times in all of big league baseball’s 170,000-plus games).  But while Buehrle and the Sox didn’t miss a beat in their 5-0 victory over Tampa Bay, Major League Baseball has been missing all of the most critical beats when it comes to building and maintaining their brand online, in an age when many people already find baseball irrelevant.

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We’re prepping a shoot for this weekend that you’ll hear plenty more about soon, but in the meantime you can whet your appetite with this delightful little montage of the sweetest way to die…

I just learned that Tim Burton’s new Alice In Wonderland movie is not a remake, but actually a new story about a 19 year old Alice returning to Wonderland.  This makes me vastly more interested in the movie, in no small part because hey, who doesn’t want to return to the magical worlds of their youth?

Well, lately, that return is common, and it’s not exactly rare to have never left.  It is socially acceptable to be a Star Wars fanatic well into adulthood.  I see a lot of grown men wearing Spider-Man t-shirts.  I know a lot of women that play a lot of Fable II.  Why has our generation refused to give up the trappings of youth?  Because we were warned…

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