In Motion

It’s been a busy few weeks. Matt K announced Digital Humanities Quarterly, a new online journal on the topic of (you guessed it) digital humanities. I hear it will be published quarterly. Jess set up an Implementation extravaganza, a performance of Montfort and Rettberg’s sticker novel in the streets of DC, scheduled for this Saturday (see link for details). Scott Rettberg, meanwhile, posted some exciting news about the Electronic Literature Organization and its publishing ambitions.

Yesterday, I attended the Summit on Educational Games sponsored by the Federation of American Scientists and the Entertainment Software Association. I’ll post some notes on that later, but you can read this Inside Higher Ed article about the meeting.

This coming Sunday, some Herders are doing a meet-up – details here. Unfortunately, we already have weekend plans, but I look forward to reports.

In personal news… Last Tuesday evening, I missed the MITH monthly movie screening (Tron, yesyesyes) because the auto shop handed me an estimate for … a lot of money … after I took my car in for an oil change prior to our adventure to Ohio this past weekend. My first thought was: Oil prices really have taken a jump. My second thought, after realizing that there were many, many things wrong: my car is not worth what it would cost to repair the brakes.

So we bought a minivan. I know. A minivan. But it’s a stylish minivan. And to put it in perspective, the car we put to sleep was a 94 Ford Taurus, in powder blue, with three AAA stickers and one Golden Eagle retirement sticker on the rear bumper. Now, I am eternally grateful for the car, which served me well for many years, but the point here is this: upgrading to the minivan should put hair back on my head, it’s so boss in comparison. You see where I’m coming from? And we got such a good deal on it, the minivan actually *appreciated in value* as I drove it off the lot. I missed my calling as a negotiator (my wife would be quick to point out that it turned out to be a no-haggle dealership very eager to get rid of old models, but I think they were just intimidated by my Consumer Reports-informed spreadsheet).

So, what do you do with a new minivan? You drive it very, very far. Like, Ohio far, for a college reunion this past weekend, where we got to catch up with some old friends and marvel at the low housing prices in suburban Columbus. Driving far is great, especially in a new van, unless you hadn’t slept for two days straight because you had researched non-stop on an alternative vehicle to the one you began describing as the “powder blue death-trap-mobile.” Despite the lack of sleep, we had a good time, except for the few hours my wife made fun of my sly Southern way of saying “vehicle,” which she added to the catalogue of “Words Jason Says Funny” (to include: cement and wolf, among others).