Tonight was the end-of-term dance for the students, and some of the responsible adults also grabbed the chance to dance around the gym/auditorium, gossip by the water fountain, hang out with the smokers on the stairs and generally act like high school kids. I’m not hip to Euro club music (or whatever that was), but [...]
The other day, I had my students make menus and play restaurant. I’d put them in groups and let the kids choose whether to be waitstaff or customers, polite or rude. Usually this class is le tired, so I was quite pleased to see the kids create roles as flamboyent European maître d’s or bored, [...]
I’m teaching at an ESL summer camp for the next two weeks. This school is as poorly organized as a typical Chinese “English center”, which allows me to test my theory that I would absolutely love that life, if only I could eat decent food after a crazy day. And it’s perfect for me [...]
Tom Lasseter, who replaced Tim Johnson as the China correspondent for McClatchy, mentioned today on his blog that Beijing plans to renovate all the hutongs around the Drum and Bell Towers. Renovation is hardly news in Beijing, where the pre-Olympic facelift hasn’t stopped and chai (Chinese for demolish) regularly marks aging walls for demolition. When [...]
I remember driving alone from Vermont back to Western Mass a few months after I’d started driving, and feeling like the trip was an object lesson in gorgeous road metaphors. The curves in the mountain roads, blind corners, broad views down the mountain, and then the highway opening and flattening out in front of me. All of those road metaphors [...]
Issue 11 of Indie Game Mag is out, including my article on IndieCade:
In the midst of the booth babes, the pumping ‘Poker Face’ from the Dance Central demo at Harmonix, and the all-out gaming promo swag of E3 is a section devoted to IndieCade, an independent games showcase.
IndieCade will host the third annual International Festival [...]
A few days ago, I was invited to check out NASA’s new game, Moonbase Alpha. Fortunately for you, it was still under wraps so you all were spared my clever, clever puns about a Moonbase Alpha beta.
Moonbase Alpha is described as multiplayer, but it’s actually for small cooperative groups, either public or passworded, not an [...]
Bethie and I met up with a bunch of my college friends at Eric’s new condo, for lots of shrieking and hugging and laughing. Oh, and wine.
It took about six seconds for me to feel at home again. A lot had changed, of course, but a lot hadn’t. These are still some of my favorite people [...]
