Another promising offering in the discussion of game fictions, role-playing, and computer games:
Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media, edited by Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. I'm looking forward to reading this one, especially Jordan Mechner's discussion of creating Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (view the entire table of contents).
A Companion to Digital Humanities is now freely available online. Edited by Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, and John Unsworth, this is an invaluable collection of essays and a wonderful resource for both research and in the classroom.
Matt Kirschenbaum has a new blog, Zone of Influence (zoi.wordherders.net), in which he talks about games and, specifically, board wargames. In his "Welcome" post, Matt describes these types of games as ...
cardboard computers; they are instruments for modeling, prediction, and prognostication, but by their nature they are open source with the algorithms laid bare in numerically expressed outcomes on charts and tables. The only “black box” is the designer’s intentions.
He has several posts available already, so be sure to read them all and, of course, leave comments.
Commenting here has been quirky, so apologies if you're having trouble with it. For whatever reason, the computer I use seem to allow me to comment just fine, so troubleshooting has be problematic.
Tagged by KF in the midst of holiday madness, I just now had a chance to participate. So with all the caveats KF outlined in her opening foray assumed here as well, on to five things you quite possibly don't know about me:
[more pics here]
I strung a lot of cable (and by a lot, I mean miles and miles. And miles.) This was significantly better than many of my previous jobs, which included greenskeeper (lower pay, though 4 seasons of free play was awesome for my golf game) and puppeteer (crap pay, and hot as the dickens, though plenty of free time in between shows to lounge around the pools at Water Country USA - pretty great for a teenager).
So, that's it. Five totally useless bits of information about me. You'll be happy to know that my arm healed nicely (and got me out of 7th-grade gym class, so it was a wash really). I love roller coasters now, though I need to take a deep breath to get through the first run, after which I'm golden for the day. My radiation report always came back with a big "0," so all my weirdness (and that of my children) is either honestly learned or honestly genetic. My wrestling career lived a short and pinned life. And I probably won't remember this post, so if you run into me one day, and good naturedly say "So, been wrastlin' lately?" with a light jab to the shoulder, don't be surprised if I look alarmed.
With that, I remind Chuck, Matt, George, and Jason J. of their obligation to KF's tag (see bottom of her post), and tag in turn the remainder of the Herders. That's right - Dave, Natalie, Marc, Calamity Jane, Ryan, Kari, Birdcage, and all the rest of you - this means you.