Wallflower’s Curse

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It’s a shame that women can’t go to conventions without being harassed in this day and age. The idea of a lady going to SDCC in a Batman t-shirt to seem “cool” has been thoroughly debunked by people smarter than me, so I won’t dwell on it here. But geek culture didn’t come up with this blatantly misogynistic stereotype because it inherently hates women. Have you read anything Gail Simone’s ever written? Do you watch Tara Long’s stuff over at Revision3? Women and nerdy things combine pretty well, as it turns out.

Dune: Can There Ever Be A Good Adaption?

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As a kid I was always fascinated by weird things. Like a lot of the children of the 80s, I was exposed to a wide variety of cinema at a young age, thanks to the proliferation of video stores. Most of this stuff we probably shouldn’t have been watching but we did anyway, often because it was a science fiction and/or fantasy film, or even a horror film if we managed to get an older kid to rent it (although the guy behind the counter usually didn’t care who was renting what).

True Hallucinations

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After a somewhat misspent youth experimenting with drugs, my biggest disappointment was that I didn’t see a pink elephant. Or blurry demon. Or a talking hot dog. The time I tried acid was mellow: I felt like I was in a sound bubble moving through the Florida night. And, truth be told, I was inside a pick up truck with Aphex Twin on the stereo. The best thing I can come up with was the time we were in an after-hours club by our house, high on ecstasy. It was well into the morning, so we kept our trip rolling

On Flappy Bird, Games Culture and the Problem with ‘Innovation’

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This is how Flappy Bird‘s time in the public eye should’ve occurred: it should’ve been just another lo-fi, challenging mobile game with an immediate and obsessive, albeit niche, following. People would download it, having seen other iOS players mention it on Twitter. Personal high scores would be tweeted back and forth in unofficial challenges. Game Center Leaderboards would be refreshed as everyone tries to beat out their friends. A few people would tweet, just once, how they don’t ‘get it’ and how they are slightly baffled by its success. Just once. Then they would move on and talk about something

Nintendo Should…

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Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or have real things to worry about) you know that the venerable game maker Nintendo has been having trouble making money lately. Now, I’m not a financial analyst. And I’m not really an expert on the Japanese game development or hardware business either. In fact, I’m not even that huge of a Nintendo fan any more. I kinda don’t like those Super Mario Galaxy games. BUT! I did beat Super Mario Brothers 3 back in the day (and I have a column due) so I’m pretty sure that makes me qualified to opine