Why did I wait for a free Internet cartoon strip series to guilt me in to buying the $1.99 version of a free game (ReMovEm) I’ve played over 12,000 times!?

As the strip posits, I had a rationalization problem. Anything that can hold my attention (or steal my attention a few minutes at a time over the past 2 years) deserves my financial support.

If you’re the Tetris-loving type, give the free version a shot and thank The Oatmeal for calling me on my own hypocrisy.

12,000 plays can't be wrong

One Game, Two Icons

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You owe it to yourself to watch the video and read the essay re-printed there so I won’t steal it’s thunder.

For the uninitiated, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind was Hayao Miyazaki’s first feature film and if you haven’t experienced it (or his other works), you’re missing out. As Mr. Ebert says in his tweet, “Some people haven’t seen a Miyazaki film. They should start here.”

Several of Miyazaki’s films are on Google Video and here’s an embed of Nausicaä to make it easier for you:

I first saw a snippet of the movie at a comic convention where it was playing from a tattered VHS along side a similar quality copy of the Dolph Lundgren Punisher movie. One of the two left a lasting impression on me.

Later during that same timeframe (middle school is, thankfully, a blur) I caught the bastardized international version on HBO. I was struck by the glider Nausicaä flew and the goliath “Ohm” creatures.

Watching it again as an adult – with the new voice talent for its re-release – I realize how brilliant and beautiful the story is. Miyazaki isn’t just an amazing animator or brilliant inventor of worlds, he tells very deep, emotional stories too, ones that transcend his chosen medium.

I’ve been going on ad nauseam about the movie to Jenn the past couple of days and I would really like Raelyn to watch it if we can track down a copy somewhere. I’d rather see it together on a bigger screen instead of a laptop, but I’ll take what I can get.

We’ve already watched Spirited Away together and, though she didn’t quite get what it was about, the fact that it was something the two of us shared together as father and daughter was really special. Plus, I like the fact that Miyazaki’s heroes tend to be heroines and that they show much more than just the courage and bravery of standard male heroic characters.

I want Raelyn to learn those lessons but also appreciate cartoons as an art form and not just a distraction (though we both enjoy Phineas & Ferb and Spongebob Squarepants, much to the consternation of her mother).

Seeing the movie reminded me of the wonder of animation and the power of childhood memories. Spirited Away hits more of the notes of the movement of child to adulthood, but something about Nausicaä really sticks with me. Maybe it’s the earnestness and conviction of the titular character. Maybe it’s just a damn fine film.

Either way, enjoy!

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I don’t like reading.
I don’t read.

This isn’t odd for a writer, especially a journalist.

I’m busy. I read my Blackberry and my bank statement and my travel itinerary.

I’m busy.
I don’t read.

Of course, the version of the truth I’m telling here – the version of myself I’m showing you – is an edited document, not the raw logs. If this were all there was of me, it’d be fraught with chicken scratches and coffee stains and the faint taint of nicotine and sweat.

Oh, and the regular smudge of newsprint.

See, I lied. I still read the paper. Every morning. Front page to Obits and even the lingering glances at the Personals.

Habit is a powerful magnet. That and I love the smell of paper like other people enjoy Scotch or Cigar Smoke of New Car (or New Baby).

Scent being the sense with the strongest linkage to our memory, maybe I’m just trying to remember what it’s like to be home. Have a real life and a real job.

It’s my Grandfather’s study and all those aromas are there. The scotch and smoke and new car scent (even my baby brother’s dirty diaper – not so fresh or new baby) all coalesce into that newsprint. Those pages. That heap of captured words and captioned pictures and comics and coupons.

That’s me now.

A heap.
Captured.
Captioned.
Comical.
Handing a drink coupon to a stewardess on a flight to nowhere.

I haven’t read the ticket. Don’t know my itinerary. Don’t know my assignment or the assignment editor.

Shut off the berry. Shut down. See you on the ground.

Comments appreciated.

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Also testing out the new WordPress app for iPhone.

And additionally placing my first iPhone pics that used the flash.

Nothing Flickr-worthy but I’m betting I fit somewhere between the Family Guy target audience (Hulk + Kool-aid Man tee) and a stoner (Big Lebowski tee) or am I being redundant?

Happy Tuesday!

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The last time UGA was ranked #1 in anything, it ended in infamy as well.

I digress.

The current #1 on everyone’s mind is this Princeton Review list of the Top Party Schools.

My response: smirky-shrug
UGA’s response:

“We’d rather focus on the Green Honor Roll listing as a top environmentally conscious campus, or the top 50 ‘Best Values’ listing,” Georgia rep Tom Jackson said in a press release this week. “It has no effect on who is accepted or who enrolls.”

To whit, some other rankings:

#7 – “best value” among public colleges
#8 – Business schools – “Greatest opportunities for women.”

While I was known to indulge/imbibe during my youth, I don’t think my partying was excessive in any way (at least not a regular basis), but in Athens, there are always parties to be found. What do you expect from a large state school with a downtown inches from campus and a thriving music scene? Benedictine Monks, perhaps?

Of course the best response came in the form of Mike Luckovitch’s cartoon from earlier this week, announcing Uga’s name change to “Chuga”. Classic.

There’s also been a lot of chatter, especially on the college football blogs, about a UGA Orientation video that features a version of Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA” re-imagined as “Party in the UGA”.

Coincidence? (In both timing and subject matter)
Evil plot?
Questionable singing?

You decide:

Since I’ve used up my quota of colons and dashes, I’ll end by saying that I was once an Orientation Leader way back during the Olympic Summer of 1996. Had YouTube been around back then you could all see our homage to “Mission: Impossible” (it was a hit that Summer) along with an oft-repeated and really obvious dick joke I used to make about the University of South Carolina mascot.

Gamecocks.
Cocks.
Funny.

So, yeah, UGA is the #1 party school for 2010 and I think we/they earned it. And yes, OLs make fools of themselves for incoming Freshmen.

I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat if I still had the stamina and the liver. ;-)

Go Dawgs!

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For the truly uninitiated who may have never even played a tabletop or MMO(RPG), here’s a brief video as a reference point to LARPs:

I’m fairly certain that clip inspired a good portion of the movie Role Models, but I can’t be totally sure.

Most of us probably don’t have the extemporaneous acting skills, free time or foam weaponry fabrication (smithing?) skills to participate in a LARP session but we love playing casual games on our phones and on Facebook.

A couple of posts this week by Jeff Hilimire and Thomas Strickland – mainly on the topics of location-awareness and technology’s place in place-based transactions got me thinking along a parallel path: gaming.

One of the hallmarks of most of the current crop of time-wasters (everything from check-in apps of various stripes, to FarmVille to even Twitter itself) are achievements. They take many forms: badges, buttons, mayorships, stars and even virtual goods and cash. But they share the feature of rewarding certain behaviors and actions with the acquisition of “flair” no matter how fleeting or ephemeral.

This idea of “the gameification of everything” has been rolling around in my head for months, since I first saw Kottke’s blog post, saw Jesse Schell’s DICE talk and heard about Jane McGonigal’s “SuperBetter” post-concussion ARG.

Here’s a recent video of a talk Jane gave in RE: SuperBetter:

These things may not seem related to why (or why not) technologies like Twitter or Foursquare or GetGlue ultimately survive, but they definitely have taught me that, as social animals, one need we have that exists right alongside this pure need to be social and share, is a desire to play, to have fun and to be rewarded in some way for our accomplishments. It starts with “tag” and moves to chess and now it’s XBOX Live and – some would argue – things like Gowalla and Miso.

But what I would argue (finally!) that “stand alone” experiences will never go away because, although most of the current crop of apps are about the “social”, you have to consider the personal, singular effects that these experiences have on the users/players who interact with them.

Do I think Foursquare will be around in 2 years? No.
Do I think Twitter will be around in 5 years? No.
Do I think Farmville will be around in 10 years? Yes.

Games are different and the introduction of game mechanics (and game-like risks & rewards) changes the math of what I’d think of as purely “social media” implementations.

What I’m most interested in (currently) are alternate reality games, social games and game-like constructs that help educate, inform and get things done. Two excellent examples, the upcoming Epic Win App and the Chore Wars RPG. The former is a GTD app/game for smartphones and the latter is an RPG framework for familial household duties. Fun AND good for you!

It’s these kinds of experiences – fun first – that I think point the way for future endeavors. You’ll always have loyalty-card-like systems (WeReward, Foursquare) but how about a “game” that gives me credit/points/something for calling my brother or working out regularly or giving an awesome presentation. One could argue that there are already portions of this functionality in other apps, but maybe I’ve just argued myself back around to this concept of pervasiveness that Jeff & Thomas put much more eloquently than I have thus far.

And while I think some if not most of the social technology and sites we have today will be gone in the near future, I think games/gaming are here to stay. The rub will be how does an activity I take in a game affect the real world? Donations to Haiti via Farmville is one way. Or how does an action I take upon entering a store or making a purchase or doing something here and now affect the game world on a server in China?

In the end, my post title is pretty meaningless given the current state of LARPs and ARGs. What I want is a better world (ha!) where I can snap a picture of the building I’m in or a QR code to update my game status for points that influence my fitness regimen or my diet and that tie back in to my game console, my TV and my running shoes. Like PerplexCity if had been played via phones. Or something like that. Maybe even like UGA’s Personal Media / Public Good projects.

It’s late and I’ve rambled on long enough. My ultimately-buried lede: while passivity is the logical outcome for all things social, active participation and outright gaming also have a long history and aren’t going anywhere anytime soon The fun begins when the games activate socially and the social activity you take without thinking about it affects your game.

Game on!

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When you’re first married, you say things like “soulmate” and “destiny” (Just not too loudly, as it induces vomiting in others).

And when you see the story of a married couple – who lived in different countries as children – appearing together in a photograph taken while they both vacationed at Disney World well, then, you blog it.

I initially got the story from Peta Pixel who was quoting BoingBoing who ran with the story as reported by The Disney Blog. The story even made CNN today.

When I mentioned the story to Jenn last night both of us got chills. Watch the video above and tell me it doesn’t stir you in some way, especially if you’re married or coupled.

It reminded us both of many of the stories on Lost (yes, I’m officially a one-note broken record) but also of an encounter that occurred in our own past, before we “met” officially.

Way back in the Fall of 1993 I was a high school Drum Major leading my marching band at a competition and Jenn was a color guard member who got to lead bands from the staging area to the football field.

That night was especially cold in Georgia (for October anyhow) and we both have vivid memories of the competition and the cold. I remember being led to the field by two color guard members in their lettermen jackets one of whom could easily have been Jenn.

It’s not quite the Disney World story above, but it’s our own little crossed paths story.

Do you have your own? Let me know in the comments.

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Oft/Soft
Often/Soften

If you’re like me (and, really, you should be) you pronounced the ‘t’ in Oft & Soft and dropped it in Often & Soften.
Right?
Right.

Based on the pronunciation of my wife and daughter, only Soften deserves the dropped ‘t’; Often is pronounced ‘OFF-TEN’ or so they say.

Being the diligent blogger that I am (natch) I took to the internet.

Turns out we’re all right:

• WordReference.com
• Answers.com
• Merriam-Webster
• Yahoo! Answers

The definitive answer was unearthed by a fellow blogger just a few weeks ago, via Dictionary.com:

During the 15th century English experienced a widespread loss of certain consonant sounds within consonant clusters, as the (d) in handsome and handkerchief, the (p) in consumption and raspberry, and the (t) in chestnut and often. In this way the consonant clusters were simplified and made easier to articulate. With the rise of public education and literacy and, consequently, people’s awareness of spelling in the 19th century, sounds that had become silent sometimes were restored, as is the case with the t in often, which is now frequently pronounced. In other similar words, such as soften and listen, the t generally remains silent.

So dropped consonant clusters have been around for a long time (in English) but some of those sounds have crept back in to spoken usage with the advent of more literate (if not educated) readers. Got it.

I can see how this would happen but I’d hasten (get it?) to pronounce all those pesky ‘t’s all the time. It would get tedious (groan).

You wouldn’t say LIS-TEN or FAS-TEN, so don’t say OFF-TEN. OK, kiddies?

One brief pronunciation clarification: I do find myself shortening the second syllable in these types of words to just a nasal consonant ‘n’ [n].
Like off’n.
Never like orphan.
;-)

Enjoy your Tuesday!

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While the music used to be a lot better, and there have certainly been more cringe-inducing, shark-jumping moments as the melodrama has wound its way through 6 seasons (and a spin-off), I do enjoy seeing a new cast of characters joining the ensemble every season.

Jenn & I were also fairly devout viewers (fans is too strong a term) of Dawson’s Creek. Early WB shows were like Crack and Dawson & Company were the biggest pushers. This explains my still-lingering attraction to Joey Potter (aka Mrs. Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes).

One of the better characters in that series was Gretchen Witter played by Sasha Alexander. She was a good older sister counterpoint to the delinquent Pacey and was a nice non-Joey love interest for Dawson.

Ok. I’m far to familiar and invested in the fictional lives of the people in the Dawson-verse. Backing away from the keyboard now.

Anyhow, I just figured that Grey’s Arizona (Jessica Capshaw) and Dawson’s Gretchen (Sasha Alexander) looked (and sounded) very similar.

Hence the post.

YMMV.

Details below.

	Sasha Alexander	Jessica Capshaw
	Sasha Alexander	Jessica Capshaw
	Sasha Alexander	Jessica Capshaw
Date of Birth	May 17, 1973	August 9, 1976
Hair	Wavy	Curly
Height	5′ 7″	5′ 5″
Television Drama	Dawson’s Creek, where her character slept with Dawson (even though she played his best friend’s older sister).	Grey’s Anatomy, where she plays the lesbian lover of Callie Torres

Happy Monday!

Full Disclosure: Sasha Alexander stars in the new TNT Series Rizzoli & Isles (premiering July 12th). Since I work for TNT I figured I’d share.

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Last night I even mentioned to Jenn that all we’ll ever have of Lost from now on is “Previously on Lost” and that got me more than a bit depressed.

Luckily, fans and haters alike are still busy dissecting what happened and making cool stuff.

To whit, I have a few links to share for Tuesday to help get you through your own withdrawals:

• CHOOSE YOUR OWN LOST ANSWERS

A fun little distraction for the dissatisfied and the disaffected. Also, don’t take it too seriously [WARNING: Double Entendre!]

• If TV’s LOST was a 1987 point-and-click computer game.

Clever and accurate. Like I was playing King’s Quest or even Homestar Runner’s Peasant Quest!

Someone needs to make this happen, for real.

• Dharma Shark Tees

The design is really appealing to me. Reminds me of my own Cafe Press/Lost experience.

*Wistful Sigh*

Until next post (as there is no next week).

Also:

What Vincent Dreamt

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