Hey Flash Gamers: We're apparently spot on....

Jamie Oliver just won the Ted Prize.

Media Eats Me Alive

OK, so I've been having an incredibly active life recently. Not in the "ohmygodimoverwhelmed" kind of way. But rather in the "woo-hoo aint life grand" kind of way. In fact, I've had so many thoughts I've found it hard to even approach blogging. Which thing should I let come to the surface? What should I focus on?

Well, clearly that approach wasn't working. I never got around to focusing on anything.
So today, I will embrace the flood of ideas and simply give highlights.

1. The Farmer's Market in Shepherdstown has not only nourished my body, but my intellect as well. Bill Mayer humorously pointed out why when he wrote: "The research is in: high-fat diets makes you lazy and stupid. Rats on an American diet weren't motivated to navigate their maze and once in the maze they made more mistakes. And, instead of exercising on their wheel, they just used it to hang clothes on. Of course we can't ban assault rifles - we're the first generation too lazy to make its own coffee. We're the generation that invented the soft chocolate chip cookie: like a cookie, only not so exhausting to chew."
2. Ted Talks are amazing and motivating. Never heard of them? You must check them out. (Confession: I have had a crush on David Carson since I heard him speak back in the 90s. If a video could be dog-eared, his presentation on Design + Discovery would be in tatters.) I want to watch one every day and emerge a smarter person.
   
3. I'm hooked on NPR's podcasts of The Moth. (Yup, my favorite ones are inevitably the ones marked "explicit.")  I found myself at the sidelines of my kids' soccer games on Saturday with earplugs on, cozy in my hoodie, laughing out loud. Sure I got some looks from the other parents, but it helped my soul to hear about Burning Man.
4. Flash can be fun. Especially when it involves animated cows. That's all I'm sayin'.
5. You can use a wiki to collaborate on a dance piece. Who knew?
6. Facebook makes birthdays fun.
   

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/new-rule-if-america-cant_b_299383.html

The End of Week Two

It is Friday afternoon, and the ground floor of Knutti is a ghost town. I'm the last class of the day, wrapping things up at 1:10. In my office now, I find myself presented with a nice quiet time to reflect on the past week and catch up.

This is going to be a fun semester. My classes have a good mix of returning friends, and enough new ones to make it fresh but not overtax me with learning names. The second section of my Computer Mediated course is almost half football players. Never had that happen before...makes for a lively dynamic. If they learn about my world of technology, I may have to take the kids to a game to be immersed in theirs!

I'm getting a handle on my Game Design class. It was a rough start, especially with gmail refusing any account requests from Shepherd. But we struggled through, and have now (I hope) bridged the abyss between starting a new technology and actually studying/designing games. It takes a lot of thought to try and integrate Globaloria's content with my content, but the payoff will be worth it.

Went to the first Common Reading event, a showing of King Corn on Wednesday night. It told the disturbing story of the impact of corn on our food industry and our health. after the show I had to run to the grocery to pick up a few things. My youngest, Daisy, read the ingredients label of everything I put in the cart. A few of my game design students showed up; I had made it extra credit since we'll be designing games to educate on the topics covered in the Common Reading, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle." It was such a good film that I think I may need to order a copy of the DVD.