I’m not usually one to play the “link something interesting” game with my blog, but you owe it to yourself to read this. Angus of Tango Lima Delta Romeo has written a very thoughtful piece on the continuing evolution of “morality” as it’s presented in games (his definition of morality, in this case, is doing your best to achieve your goals within a game; so, as such, it is “moral” to kill goombas in Super Mario Bros).

Aside from criticizing the “invisible hand of God” that keeps a fully tabulated and annotated count of how many “good” points and “not so good” MoralityPoints™ you have, he raises interesting ideas as to how one might truly present moral quandaries to a player, and, therefore, add new depth to “playing” and “beating” a scenario.

But the most interesting parts of moral conflict, the ones that separate pulp and genre from literature, are the ones that are ambiguous and dependent on situation. I ran an Unknown Armies (a pen and paper role-playing game) game for some friends awhile ago where everyone played sort of idealized selves and put them through any number of horrible events that have no grounding in life. Players reactions were surprising. People acted out of panic, anger, fear, attachment, all of the things that many simplified moral codes urge us to deny.

Definitely worth a look, if this sort of thing is up your alley.

Hi, Internet!

It’s been a while, I know. Just letting you know I’m alive and that, while I haven’t had anything particularly good to say since December, I’m still around. Here’s some of the stuff that’s been keeping me busy:

1. Every Game Ever

I have restarted the Every Game Ever blog with multiple writers. Now, instead of just me writing about seven SNES games a week (exhausting), I write about one a week and four others do the same. Oh, and I edit their work, too (also exhausting). For those unaware, it’s an exhaustive (ha) blog attempting to “review” (to comic effect) every SNES game ever.

2. My Sucky Job

My job has been in crisis mode for the past while, and they recently turned it up to 11 with a “we’re probably going to lay you off unless the impossible happens” demand. I’ve been spending a lot of time learning about employment insurance, and budgeting whether or not I’ll be able to subsist on what amounts to very little money per month. I think I can do it, which is a relief, but now it looks like they might not even layme off, which is confusing. They still haven’t given me written two weeks’, so that’s… I can’t decide if it’s good or bad. I’d love an excuse to not work here anymore…

3. “A Fistful Of Tokens” Podcast

I’ve also been editting the first episode of a podcast that was worked on by myself, Scott, Angus, and Travis (who has no web presence… in 2009. And he’s an English Master’s graduate. Someone please tell him the face of writing today so he can catch up with the world). It exists now in its editted form. All I need to do is sort out the hosting and the RSS and all of the stuff I can’t be bothered to sort out. The show exists as a sort of videogame-related version of the BBC5 panel show Fighting Talk, where questions of the industry are asked and the pundits get points for witty, insightful or downright hilarious responses. There’s also a lot of noise in the recording, particularly on my end, so I’m going to try to find a solution to that too.

4. Books!

I’ve also got an unread book pile that is menacing over me from my shelf. I am convinced that, despite my attempts to tame it of late, it will consume me. I’m curently reading Lawrence Lessig’s Remix, which is a thoughtful look into the success of “hybrid economies” on the Internet (which, boiled down to the barest terms, is a commercial site that fosters a sharing community among its members, like craigslist) as well as the music/film/television/etc industry’s backwards-facing stance on copyright (for a hilarious dose of irony, check out Lessig’s blog right now: he has a CC license on a segment he shot with Stephen Colbert, and asked his readers to “remix” the segment: the segment was taken down due to a “copyright violation,” claimed by Viacom. THAT is too funny). I’m also reading Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid On Earth which is a fantastic book. A fantastic book with pictures. I don’t want to call it a graphic novel because I think the author himself, Chris Ware, recoils from the term (or so the little cartoon on the back of the book would imply), and rightly so; I’ve never seen a graphic novel deliver this level of richness of character, bleakness of setting, or realness of conversational flow. I’ve also got about six books on my “borrowed books that I feel guilty about not having read yet” pile, and another six on my “books I bought but haven’t read because there are still books in the other pile” pile.

5. Procrastinating on playing games to play… other games!

Gamewise, my attempts to sit down with Far Cry 2 and Dead Space and Fallout 3 (all of which I intend to actually let soak in at some point; they’re still borign to me, but I’ve barely otuched them. I need to immerse) have been stymied by the release of Crayon Physics Deluxe (post upcoming, surely), Steam’s $4.99 sale of the entire X-Com catalogue (now, sadly, back to $14.99 but still a great deal — post ALSO upcoming, surely), and the release of the 9.2.0 patch of Football Manager 2009 which actually makes the game playable (if you’re going to flame me on playing an excel-sheet-game, stay tuned because SURPRISE! POST INCOMING!).

6. Making a game!

Cikro is also “hard at work” (that term is subjective, right?) on its first videogame. The tentative title is Malmö. Brush up on your Swedish, because due to a coworker of mine who speaks the language, parts of the game will be presented in the tongue of ABBA and Mats Sundin.

7. Secret blog!

There’s also another somewhat comedic blog that I’ve started and will be contributing to in the near future but I’m keeping that one under my hat. The only hint I’ll give is that it’s related to both breasts and eggs. But not chickens. Well, not really.

8. Cover band?

I’m signed up to be the lead singer in a cover band next month. I don’t know if that’s happening, but if it is, I don’t ANY of the songs I’m supposed to cover. Hmm.

9. The Wire & True Blood

I’m also staring at The Wire (the TV series), trying to will myself to watch it. I’m on season 2, and it’s VERRRRY difficult, but I can’t watch the (apparently amazing) seasons 3-5 without enduring 2. I watched True Blood, though, which was schlocky (not s1ocki, unfortunately) and fun enough.

10. P&P RPGs

Been playing D&D at my buddy Angus’s (different Angus than above — yes, I know and hang out with TWO Anguses). He might run Vampire The Masquerade. I am conflicted because I think vampires are dumb, but I think acting like an ass with your friends is the best thing ever.

11. Catching up on blogs superior to my own

I’m trying to catch up on the past year of all of the blogs listed here. This might take a while.

I didn’t intend for this to be such a long piece; really, I just wanted to round up everything I’m doing at the moment. Apparently I’m doing A LOT.

Here are five massive hunks of words that intrigued me this year. I tried to put them in a sort-of-chronological order, but, as you’ll see, some of them are difficult to place (the first really spans a year). You’ll also see that I didn’t list all of these because they’re good– one of them is there in spite of being bad and one of them is there because it’s bad. Anyway, I’ll shut up so you can read them. Or about them. Whichever. Happy boxing day!

The Publications

The Round Table: Gender & Games. (1 2 3 4 5 6 7) and the following deluge of further examinations of the subject (too many to list)

While this writing didn’t happen in 2008, I didn’t read it until this year. Furthermore, the dialogue that it spawned bled into the rest of the year and gave everyone a lot to think about. Indeed, there are a few things that any medium needs to achieve before it can claim relevance; one of those things is a feminist voice, and another is a voice that can speak across gender to the human condition. The more we make noise about it on the Internet, the more we might be able to push videogames off the path it’s heading down right now. While I like Jason Statham movies, can you imagine if they were the only option, every time you went to the theatre?

Mitch Krpata’s New Taxonomy of Gamers

The first proper entry for 2008, The Insult Swordfighting series of essays did all but make the terms “hardcore” and “casual” (in reference to gamers) obsolete. Over the course of the eleven-part epic, Mitch introduces some new concepts to the way we think about games. This was important to me in two ways: for one, it gave a vocabulary to issues that I (and apparently others) had with the labelling we give ourselves (I hardly consider myself a casual gamer, but find the term “hardcore” just as ostracizing). While I’m not sure I’m willing to call myself a “tourist” gamer yet, I’m definitely more aware of the inherent flaws in the hard/casual spectrum. But, secondarily, this series of essays opened me up to criticism of other terms used in the industry. I don’t think I would have written (or even thought of) my criticism of the term “retro” if I hadn’t read the NToG, or questioned countless other things that we say (for example, I would have considered the previously mentioned Football Manager a sports title until I realized that it’s really just a turn-based strategy title with a sports gloss).

Actionbutton.net’s Braid Review

Sadly, this review was pulled, and it’s a great shame. It was replaced with the equally brilliant review by Soulja Boy (I’m not being sarcastic or cutting here, I think Soulja Boy might just be the Jonathan Swift of our generation) and I can’t find the original anywhere on the Internet so far. This review really opened my head; Braid was a game that I had many very conflicting feelings about, and this review gave a voice to them. That voice was also petulant, pretentious, contrarian, and base. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever disliked a game (well, partly), AND disliked the ONLY negative review I could find about the game. It also got the ball rolling on a series of discussions I had about the rather misogynist angle the game had. It also made me very jaded with how homogenous opinions seem to get among a lot of tastemakers. It seemed nobody wanted to agree with me, or even discuss with me, that the game isn’t perfect.

My Dtoid Article, Feel The Hatred: Gamers

Don’t get me wrong, that article was kinda shit. I wrote it in a vitriolic rage, and I didn’t edit it, and I was honestly embarrassed that it got put on the front page of Destructoid. But, it made me realize I like the way blogging works. And that I wanted to write in my own space instead of Destructoid’s community blogs. And that people reading stuff I write, even when it sucks, is fun, because then we get to talk about it. There’s not a lot else to say about this other than that I’m sorry that it was so mad. I’m not actually that mad in real life.

Jason Fagone’s Jason Rohrer Feature

Oh man. I love the games that Jason Rohrer makes, but he’s not really the kinda guy who talks about himself outside of the stuff he releases. This is the feature that I’ve always wanted to see, ever since I played Passage; I want to know what makes this guy so great. The answer: EVERYTHING. I love that there are people making games who aren’t living like everyone else making games. I even remember after reading it that I felt like the being in the city was a bad call and that I should move somewhere with a meadow (I was drunk) (I was also going to NYC in a week, good timing!). Now all we need is people writing with weird worldviews.

Tomorrow: Day 3, The Moments.

Every year, I tend to make my own list of favourite games. I’ll parrot that list wherever people might listen; forums, livejournals, real-life conversations, and even print ‘zines have had to put up with my pre-year-plus-one ramblings at one point or another.

This year I’ve decided to break it up into a few parts to spare any potential readers from too big a burst of annual logorrhea. I’ll be spreading it out over four days:

December 25: The Oldies. These games didn’t come out in 2008 but since the order in which I get and play games is hardly, if ever, chronologically coherent, they only got to me this year.
December 26: The Publications. These are the things I read about games this year that really inspired me to think or to write. I’ve probably talked about some of them before, but it’s worth taking a trip down blogosphere lane and patting some backs unnecessarily at the same time, innit?
December 27: The Moments. Here, I’ll talk about the news and the non-news that made 2008 interesting to me.
December 28: The Lesser Mediums. I don’t know what’s worse about this title: calling them “mediums,” or calling them “lesser.” Here’s my top lists for films and records.
December 29: Questionable Mentions. Games that I’m disappointed that I didn’t get to play, and that may have placed if I had.
December 30: Dishonorable Mentions. Games that disappointed me in one way or another; things that just didn’t have everything I needed to be satisfied.
December 31: Honorable Mentions. Games that, while fantastic, would have to settle for a double-digit ranking if I were to rate them. Instead, they’re presented in alphabetical order.
January 1: The Big Ten. It took me ages to get here, but here are the ten games of 2008 that really moved me, in one way or another.

Indeed, I’ve planned a lot of writing for myself over the next few days. Hopefully, I’ll figure out how to make them post automatically on each of these days so I don’t have to come back to this terrible computer at my folks’ place every day. Wordpress can probably do that, right?

Day 1: The Oldies coming soon! Be excited afraid!

Here begins part two of my saga, which, really, I just wanted to get out of the way so I could start writing WELL again. What an awful concept this was. Sorry everyone!

SATURDAY: The middle full day

115. Slow start today… I’m freezing in Bed-Stuy.
116. Ok, a little bit of chiptune noodling, talking to Josh’s roomies and we’re off!
117. Stood on Josh’s roof for a bit and looked over Brooklyn. Damn that’s awesome. There’s that steroidal hulk, Manhattan, in the distance.
118. Gonna hit the convenience store for something to drink. This city is very dehydrating, somehow.
119. WTF! “Purple drink” and “blue drink” for 25 cents a pop! BUY BUY BUY
120. OH GOD THEY RUINED MY STOMACH. Maybe they’ll help with my stomach problem, at least.
121. SUBWAY TO CHINATOWN! Yeeeeeah!
122. Someone has tried to sell me turtles on the street in Chinatown. Want to buy and lose in a sewer with mutagenic ooze SO BADLY.
123. Also, there was a truck that women kept coming out of with knockoff coach bags. And a guy standing nearby with a litte catalogue. Knockoffs be FANCY here.
124. And BOLT on DVD. Is that even out yet?
125. To TAI PAN for lunch. It’s like a bakery, but chinese, and with cheeseburgers, and CHEAP! WTF! 1.25 sandwiches remind me of MTL Yoy Cafe Crackwiches!
126. I should explain: in MTL, at Yoy Cafe, there are these “vietnamese subs” that are AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS. These are similar.
127. To the Chinatown Faire! Which is an arcade, apparently!
128. They just got a BlazBlue machine (the Guilty Gear guys made it apparently) and two SFIV machines. CALECHE!
129. Justin Wong is playing SFIV and killing scrubs left and right! Whoa, I’m mildly starstruck.
130. Okay, there’s too much noise here– Kelvin and I are going to go walk across the bridge.
131. But first, we stop in this place called Baby’s, each order a soda, and take turns using the washroom. FINALLY! I had to plunge the terlet when done. Embarrassing!
132. We get directions to the bridge, and walk over the bridge with some Lucky Strikes. Lots of good chats about life and all that stuff.
133. Weird: a cop car with what looked like a blinking field goal post on top of it on the bridge.
134. Some girl looking so hipster that she’s almost a 1920s period piece standing on the bridge reading a book being filmed. A LONG shot it seems. Oh, art films.
135. We got here, it’s getting dark. Let’s explore DUMBO.
136. Some wandering, the bagel shop we tried to hit was closed by 5pm, LAME, so we’re at the waterside now.
137. SKIPPIN’ STONES IN THE HUDSON. Seriously.
138. Haha, after we skipped stones some other people joined in. They are two couples that look like clones of each other.
139. How are we gonna get back to Manhattan to meet toiders for dinner in Chinatown? I guess by walking the bridge… again!
140. Took ages, but we got here. They are on their way out of this place. We had the wrong addy so waited outside 17, not 15 Mott, for a while!
141. We finally got in as people were leaving, and they offered us their leftovers, which we ate like starving bums. THAT’S a first effin’ impression.
142. I met so many people that I don’t even think I got all of their names… Tino, Chelsea, Melanie, Pedro, damn, I suck at remembering names…
143. Off to Blip we all go! We are many and noisy and nerdy. Like a cloud of bleeping nanobots. Or something.
144. Didn’t get lost this time! There’s a line for over 21 bracelets. It’s been FOREVER since I was at all ages shows, heh. Getting carded is novel.
145. I love when they look at my Ontario driver’s license funny. Hehehe.
146. Bubblyfish goes on and Kelvin calls her method of presentation “celestial” which I find really funny. Indeed her movements are certainly informed by Greek theatre in their over-the-topness.
147. Pretty dope set though, and I love Kraftwerk so the “it’s more fun to compute” cover is fun. Wait is that a “sweet dreams” cover as well? 2 covers in one set? ok…
148. There’s a Japanese guy named Cow’p who busts out some INSANE gameboy dancehall that SLAYS me/kel. The nerds here aint feeling it as much. SHAMEFUL. This is more relevant than a lot of this other stuff.
149. Nullsleep goes on. It’s ok I guess, not as much my thing as the last guy. Kelvin: “write that this guy acts like Dane Cook.” Done.
150. Dubmoon plays an 8-bit Silent Shout by the Knife. I’m wondering if it’s ethically sound to play a cover and not say it’s a cover to people who don’t know the original.
151. One of these things had a video in it full of weird sex imagery involving the man and woman on bathroom doors.
152. It’s pretty transgressive-but-in-that-bullshit-current-already-been-done way and just offensive. I go outside for a SMOOK.
153. Tiff and– was it… Chico? Shit, I forget– are outside. I think I made some joke about Canada. I forget. I was kinda drunk and had just hit my head on some metal.
154. We leave, no fight tonight, but Josh is very drunk. He needs to pee. I recommend peeing ANYWHERE, Montreal style, but apparnetly you cna get arrested for that in NYC?
155. Josh and I end up peeing off a bridge, which the Americans find hilarious but I find pretty normal. I got some pee on me, DAMNIT.
156. We wait like 30 mins for a stupid G train.
157. ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: rode a NYC subway smelling of pee. 50 HOBOSCORE POINTS.
158. Finally in Bed-Stuy, I go to one of these Bodega things. Money in turntable, spins, food out turntable! So weird!
159. Getting a boatload of microwaved chickenburgers! Some guy is annoyed and cuts line to get his $1 “vanilla dutch” cigar. AMAZING! This neighborhood!
160. There’s an angry black guy on a phone yelling “there’s gonna be trouble!” Al thinks he’s talking to us and FREAKS OUT.
161. These chicken burgers, like all american fast food so far, WEIGH SO MUCH IN MY HAND. tip: to feel full with less food, STOP MAKING ALL MEALS OF LEAD, USA.
162. Forgot to mention: on Friday, in Brooklyn, we saw a cop car with a guard tower like ATTACHED to it or something. WTF? Mobile sniper tower?
163. Back to Josh’s for drunken sleeptime.

SUNDAY: The last full day

164. Woke up late in Bed-Stuy. Slow morning. Said goodbye to Nick and Al, cos they’re leaving today and Kel&I are striking out on our lonesome for a while.
165. Seems like cops blocked off Myrtle just beyond the subway stop. THIS CITY IS FULL OF COPS. Are there like 10 cops per person here or something?
166. Heading back to the hostel after hitting “Duane Reade” which is apparently a pharmacy chain. Showertime. This city is full of “Polish Spring” bottled water.
167. Murray’s Bagel time: is this gonna be the MTL killer? Order a sesame with creamcheese and lox for maximum effect. $10 later… good lox, good cheese, bleh bagel. MTL WINS. FATALITY.
168. After some piddling around, going to St. Marks for more randomness. We go to a place with used records so Kelvin can dig. He finds a disco record he maybe wants.
169. Guy behind the counter is kinda awkward Asian guy who laughs and says “disco? really?” but tries to be nice about it. It’s not the rec kelvin wants anyway, bounce time.
170. To Videogames New York. A man works here who is like THE ARCHETYPE of the manchild: 40, spiky bleached hair, listening to Slayer, video game elitist mofo. Nutty prices.
171. His friend and him argue over who will watch the store and who will go out to get someting to drink. Friend is classic “friend of VG store employee” archetype: whiny.
172. Texting w/ Cara to find out where to go in the LES since last time was a bit of a failure, IMO. Other Music already on the list to buy LOVE IS ALL tickets!!!
173. We have NOTHING to do until the Love is All show at like 8 or 9. Hmm. It’s like 5.
174. At Other Music, asked if tix to tonight’s show have been sent back to the venue yet. Apparently not but she can’t find them.
175. 10 mins later, they WERE sent after all. Tickets at the door, yaaaaaaaaaay~ :( I guess we’ll get there for 8:30 or so. Still a lot of time to kill
176. Cara said to hit the Snack Dragon, so we shall check it out… but not before we wander around uselessly for a while.
177. OK! Snack Dragon! We get some tacos, and some spice tea, and some CHIPOTLE BROWNIES (the latter was a ma z i nn ggggg). GREAT meal all around.
178. We chat with the guy who works there for like an hour. He’s paying $290 for an apartment in Brooklyn!!!! Good God!!!!! He also told us about his time in Chicago, SF, and Austin.
179. What a cool dude. I liked chatting with him. But we’ve overstayed our welcome at The Village Voice’s #1 place to get a drunk taco at 3am.
180. We wander some more; there’s a Turkish place. I decide to introduce Kelvin to Turkish coffee. He loves it and calls it “deep, like good bass.”
181. Continuing his comparison of TC to good bass: “Kinda fuzzy, kinda bitter, and dark, but not in an evil way. And loud.” Kelvin is the best.
182. We are staying here and writing notes on everything to happen, so I don’t forget anything when I write this post. This place is called Bereket, and its kebabs look AMAZING but we just ate.
183. I really gotta rock the washroom. I do so, and the toilet stops working. I tell Kelvin we gotta leave NOW, that deuce is wicked bad. They will LYNCH us if we don’t go now.
184. At this point, we head to the venue because why not. Apparently it is starting at 8:30 anyway. Get tix at door, and head in.
185. I’ve never seen so many uncomf-looking hipster tryhards at once ever. It takes a LOT for me to feel like a total bro ANYWHERE I go but I do here. Wow.
186. Damn you, Bowery. $6 a beer? At least I get to try Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, which is GREAT. Kel and I decide to kil our money, since this is it.
187. Nobody who was considering coming to this tonight is apparently coming so it’s just Kelvin and me. Their loss, this band is gonna rule.
188. The first act was turd. Cold Cave? We didn’t even go up, sounded like boring white noise A Place To Bury Biters nonsense. We gettin’ DRUNK again.
189. Someone we struck convo up with: “didn’t aphex twin do this 12 years ago?” HAHA. Off the mark but still funny. They’re less douchey than others cos they’re here to see thier friend guest-play trumpet for one of the bands.
190. There’s an auto paper towel dispenser in the toilets that is ANNOYING. Me and this other dude STRUGGLE with it a LOT. When done, I look over at him and say, “I hate the future,” and leave. He LOLs.
191. I go upstairs to watch the second act, mostly to get a good place to see the third and final band. Crystal Stilts, they’re called.
192. THEY ARE OFFENSIVELY BORING. Like if The Organ wasn’t a bunch of lesbians. Or if Morrissey was a boring Morrissey ripoff. Kelvin boos.
193. Kelvin talks to some girl about how that band sucked. Is he playing game? I can’t tell, too busy trying to slowly edge up for LIA.
194. They’re on. They’re burn my two fave songs in the first 3 tracks. They are also P E R F E C T. I have needed this.
195. A Flock Of Seagulls, you just got covered. That was the best version of I Ran I’ve ever heard, and I LOVE the original.
196. Seriously… this set is too good. Too bad all of these NYC kids are so jaded; this act BELONGS in Montreal. Land of emotion-charged, catharsis-loving mofos. Will see THAT on Wednesday. Excited!
197. Outside, trying to hook up with Dtoiders tonight. So not gonna happen; we’re drunk and wandering around dumbly, and kinda lost.
198. There’s a chinese place open, where we get a chicken fried rice and two tsingtaos for 11 bucks. Great deal! Plus, weird Chinese cartoons on the TV. South Park meets Jetsons.
199. They are trying to get rid of us. They’re closing. Good enough for me, we need to go sleep.
200. WANDERING THROUGH MANHATTAN looking for an A/C/E at 1am on a Sunday. I ask for directions and get some, finally. I remember I have my camera.
201. We start exploring and taking photos. I kick out the JAMS on my Nikon with 400 aperture B&W film. Coming soon, probably: 50 all-black useless photos.
202. We find a little wedge of space with: a graveyard, a playground, and a pit of balconies. This space is, like, near Chinatown, and maybe 30 feet across. INSANE.
203. Ok, on a C train. Back and sleep.

MONDAY: The ride home

204. Hung over.
205. Trying to hook up with people for breakfast, but they’re all busy. For the best, probably; we need to be on a bus in 2.5h.
206. Slowly get up, say goodbye to Chelsea, and subway up to the port authority.
207. There’s pizza here; I get some. it is brooklyn-style, probably not the best, but it was pretty good to me at 10:30 in the morning, I guess.
208. Two people working here: “Hey, Neal, you do good work! I just wish you did more of it!” Awesome.
209. Buy snacks for the bus (almonds), almost finish off my American money. Also, some Fanta! The orange stuff!!!! YES!!!!!
210. Remember that I did the equivalent of drunk-dialing the Dtoid NY emailer last night, forget what I said. No way to check now, yikes.
211. I miss my city. I feel like if I were here too long I’d be as jaded as those kids at the Bowery last night. It only took a few years in MTL to make me a wide-eyed dorky MTLer, after all.
212. This is a long ride home for someone with nothing to think about.
213. Kelvin plays my DS, Bangai-O spirits, and I listen to LCD soundsystem and Love is all. There’s a cute girl sitting beside me but her hair is odd.
214. Albany again; we find a used book store run by an eccentric old man. It has records. Kelvin digs ‘em and finds 3. See, NYC record prices are stupid; here, they’re nice.
215. BOOOOOOOORING SO BORED
216. At the border. Also boring.
217. My phone died! I coulda used it here to get online! BAD TIMING!
218. Seeing Montreal from the outskirts, realizing how much smaller it really is. I’ve never come to MTL from Longeuil like this; it’s an interesting new way to see it.
219. Back in MTL. Kelvin has to catch the Ottawa bus so I will go home on my own.
220. Hanging out in giant gaggles of people seeing shows all weekend to being home alone (well, except my roomies) doing nothing… this is a difficult transition.
221. I get on my computer, aaaaaaand… THAT’s the end of my Internet vacation. END COMMUNICATION.

Soon on brilli.am/writes — I’ll be talknig about my review policy for games, and I’ll review one! Yay!

I don’t know if anyone will read this, since I’ve had to do so much juggling with Wordpress and domains and nameservers and silly stuff like that, but http://brilli.am/writes is finally live!

If you’ve got bookmarks, you don’t need to update them, but you should, because that’s an awesome thing to do. http://brilli.am/writes is the link!

If you’re RSSing this, throw your old RSS feed away! On The Quixotic Engineer’s recommendation, I’ve got a FeedBurner feed, now. It’s here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/brilliam.

I’m intending to write a very clever thing or two in the near future, but for now, I’m just updating the world to my status.  I hope you’re all still reading, and that I didn’t break the Internet!

Hi there, everyone.

My name is Brilliam and I have a problem.

You see, I’ve been spreading myself pretty thin on the internet. I’ve got a Livejournal, to which I post occasionally; a Destructoid blog, to which I post a bit more than occasionally; two wordpress.com blogs (one general, one a specific project), which have languished in recent months; my game dev team’s blog; a twitter account; more, I’m sure, but I can’t remember anything else right now.

The rub is, I look negligent and lazy on all fronts, because any content I produce only fires out on one of these channels at a time, and keeps nobody’s interest. So, I have created what I hope will be my most encompassing blog, which is this one. I’ve even invested in a fancy, expensive .am domain name, so I’ll feel guilty if I neglect it.

However, I don’t intend for this blog to be entirely unfocused. I hope to write here about video games and the industry and culture that surround them. I also intend to write a lot of speculative “what if” pieces about things that those who like video games might be into (like “what if you were selected to go into the Fallout vault?”) While I don’t entertain any fantasies that I might be the first person to write a blog like this, I do hope that you, dear reader, will be entertained. After all, reading’s more easy than writing, right? You can fit it in.

The question is, what am I going to do with my other blogs? Well, here’s a handy-dandy list of where I am, and what’s happening to those places where I am, in the style of an end-of-television-series montage with wistful subtitles:

TabQWER

This could probably be considered more of an idea dump and test bed than it could a fully-formed blog, will most likely be retired. I also intended to use it for my sports-related ramblings, which are minimal anyway; I hope readers here wouldn’t be too alienated if I occasionally talked about sport here. That’s pretty much everything I did there.

Every Game Ever

This project (playing one SNES game a day and blogging about it) has languished, and languished hard (if languishing is something you can even do hard). I intend to bring this blog back, but perhaps with multiple writers (if you’re interested, let me know). It’d maintain the same flippant, comedic voice, ideally. Until then, though, it’s on hiatus.

Terr

This is my Livejournal (true fact: also the name of the main character of the first thing I ever published online, a Chrono Trigger fanfiction. Please don’t try to dig this up, I was thirteen and it’s incredibly embarrassing!). While I intend to maintain the account, because I want to keep up with some dear friends over there, any updates herein will probably just be references to things I’ve written elsewhere.

Brilliam@VOX

I think I only made this account because some old LJ friends said they were migrating five ears ago. I’m not sure I ever even did anything with it, so don’t mind it.

Destructoid

While I’ll still post here, I’ll most likely only post stuff related to their site, like Monthly Musings post (which I will also run here) and community-related blogs. While I’m downright addicted to the attention, it was hinted by The Quixotic Engineer that I may be squandering my talents.

Twitter

Nothing’s gonna change here. I’m still going to run my mouth like an idiot, misspell “separate” on a weekly basis, and talk about creepy dreams I have.

CIKRO BLOG

This is intended to be the blog for my game development team/art collective, and not for me. I’m going to leave well enough alone until it has something to do with the projects we’re working on. Which are super-secret right now. SUPER-secret! Subscribe to it by putting ?flav=rss at the end of the URL, if you care (blosxom is SO COOL).

THE SPOILERIST

The Spoilerist, which is Scott’s labour of love, is something I intend to continue writing for. Once it escapes its current state of flux, I’ll certainly be dropping truth bombs over there. I may cross-post them here.

Looking back, I’m realizing that this entry, which I have spent altogether too much time on, is mostly only relevant to me. Still, it marks the end of a lot of my web presence, and the beginning of a space that I have more control over. And that’s always a good thing, right?