Hello e:strippers! It's been awhile, but after spending a weekend in Idaho, I felt like I should update you on what we've been up to. It's been six weeks since we moved away from Buffalo. In some ways, it feels like forever, and in other ways it feels like just yesterday we were eating Indian food with e:PMT. (We still haven't found a very good Indian food restaurant, but we're back on the Mexican stuff. o//)

So last weekend I went out to Idaho to hang out with my old friends and speak at an event in the Power of Play series. It was a great day of speakers (if I do say so myself), and I think everyone really had a good time. The lineup began with me, and I delivered an overview of games and game studies to try to provide some foundation for the mixed audience. Laurie Taylor (http://www.laurientaylor.com) followed up with an excellent discussion of gender in games. Rick Fehrenbacher gave a talk about medievalism in videogames. And then Julian Dibbell (http://www.juliandibbell.com) spoke about his new book, Play Money, which I had to break down and get signed. It was an irrepressible moment of fanboyness. But I don't think it hurt my cred... hehe Maybe I should have brought my copy of My Tiny Life? That might have actually increased my cred. Oh well, too little, too late.

Anyway, I have some photos from the event.



Here's me and Julian Dibbell talking about some really smart stuff.


This is all of us on the closing panel. From left to right, it's Rick, me, Julian, and Laurie.


And here is me, Rick and Laurie.

I have no idea who took these photos, but I was alerted to them by my good friend, Mike Wilchek. Woot for Mike!

It was especially great because not only did I get to see all of my old friends at University of Idaho, but I also got to have the kind of experience I remember so fondly seeing really inspiring folks talk about really interesting things. I remember all the cool people I met at UI who came by to tell us about interesting stuff: Scott McCloud, Ray Federman, Samuel R. Delany, Michael Joyce, Bruce Sterling, Ray Kurzweil, on and on and on. It might be way up there in the middle of nowhere, but it's got something funky going on.

I returned to work today at PBS. It's the end of week 6, although I've been gone for most of it. I'm still really enjoying my job, so it's not hard to go back.

Also, Sarah has gotten not one, but TWO jobs! She'll be teaching some courses at the Art Institute of Washington DC, and she'll be doing some children's workshops at the Corcoran Art Gallery. Both are really cool gigs that will lead to even cooler stuff. Sarah is already lined up to teach some adult education art courses next Spring at the Corcoran, which is a really great gallery.

Here's an example of what I love about Wikipedia (and I found this linked from Digg, which I also love):

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." is a grammatically valid sentence used as an example of how homonyms and homophones can be used to create complicated constructs.
...
If a comma is allowed between subject and predicate, and the optional "that" is included, the sentence becomes:

Buffalo buffalo that Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Substituting the alternative plural produces:

Buffalo buffaloes that Buffalo buffaloes buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffaloes.

If the homophones were then replaced with other words, it would look like:

Buffalo bisons that Buffalo bisons intimidate, intimidate Buffalo bisons.

Finally, using common articles produces:

The Buffalo bisons that Buffalo bisons intimidate, intimidate Buffalo bisons.

It may help to consider the following sentence, which has the same grammatical structure as the original.

Many things many people say confuse many people.

Wow, I can't believe how awesome these Japanese signs are. I also can't believe there are FIVE PAGES of these things. I learned so much about Japanese Smoking Etiquette: 1) Don't smoke around other people. 2) Always carry a portable ashtray. 3) Cowboys lived in old movies. 4) Don't abuse children or snow (or snowmen). 5) Always check behind you before you fart.

As far as I know, these are real signs. I got to them through a post on the old Boing Boing.