Lord Stabbington

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Meg

The last few days of school had a lot of angst for my students as summer couples separated. I always enjoy being the older confidante in teenage adventures, but this particular situation reminded me so much of being exactly my students’ age and meeting a certain British exchange student on a similar program. And yes, the relationship went exactly the way everyone (except me) knew it would: Angst, bad poetry, and occasional transatlantic phone calls until, you know, school and computer games and boys who were actually around got in the way.

When I was in Los Angeles a few months ago, I was at a party talking to a guy about the internet and indie entertainment and the long tail (Do I know how to party, or what?), and the example he used for web movies going mainstream was Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog and the Evil League of Evil, and Lord Stabbington, and I might have started shrieking. Just a little bit.

“LORD STABBINGTON! NO WAY! THAT’S STEPHEN‘S MOVIE!!! I had the biggest crush on him when I was seventeen! We totally held hands once! And he wrote me an email and signed it ‘Love’!” I realized at this point that jumping up and down and shrieking may not be the social norm. “I mean, uh, yes, I’m familiar with Joss Whedon and Dr. Horrible. You were saying?”

This type of reaction is probably why I don’t get invited to more parties.

And, kids, I hope that’s how your summer romances work out. I hope that years after your conversations about Film and Writing and Art,  you become a struggling writer and when you hear about a filmmaker, it makes you smile.

And I hope you’re better at parties than I am.

Posted in New Jersey, Raleigh | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Two Worlds Collided

Posted on July 31, 2010 by Meg

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 there was still at least one song I could really dance to.

Student: Miss Meg, where did you learn the ‘Poker Face’ dance?

Meg: Oh, I picked it up from the Dance Central booth at E3.

Eye-Rolling Student: No, be serious, how did you really learn it?

Posted in New Jersey, Raleigh | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Talented

Posted on July 26, 2010 by Meg

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, gum-snapping waitresses.

I was walking around the room, proud of my awesome ESL lesson, when my friend Lynn sent a mayday text asking where a friend of hers could find, um, certain Western feminine products in Beijing. I immediately texted back subway directions, with the additional notes about the secret DVD shop in the basement of a menswear shop nearby.

I have a unique skillset.

Posted in Beijing, New Jersey | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hard Copy

Posted on July 22, 2010 by Meg

Oh, look, it’s a game to which I’ve contributed in a tiny way, on the real shelf in the real store. This will never get old for me. Apologies to any Target employees who might not have enjoyed my happy dance.
Nancy Drew

Posted in Raleigh | Tagged | Leave a comment

New Material

Posted on July 22, 2010 by Meg

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 right now, the epic rawness of teenage emotions (Teenagers, Cicero and Meg love the superlative), working with other ESL adventurers, and complete, bone-aching exhaustion at the end of the day.

A new group of students was dropped on me the other day, so I set them up to play Who Do You Love?, my go-to game for surprise classes. After a few minutes of dead, sleepy stares, the teenagers caught on and were soon tormenting their classmates and testing the limits of appropriate classroom vocab.

“I love people who wear thongs!”one of the boys called out.

I was halfway through my lecture on appropriate classroom vocab when I realized they’ve got a British English textbook, and everyone but me thought we were talking about flip-flops.

Posted in New Jersey | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bu Chai

Posted on July 21, 2010 by Meg

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 lived in Beijing in 2008, I took as many photos as I could of buildings with chai on the side, trying to record as much of old Beijing as I could.

This news hits home, though, because I lived on Brick Workers’ Lane, a hutong in the shadow of the Drum Tower. I was told it was named because it was originally housing for the builders working on the drum tower, and I loved the connection to the past as we made our way down the twisting pathways. Lasseter says that at least one block’s already been razed, with plans for more to go, and I wonder if WarCraft Man or Grandma Waitress or any of my old neighbors have been moved on.

I liked the neighbors in the hutong. I was still a tourist attraction — like in Yantai, I often found neighborhood children hanging on my gate waiting to see the white girl — but the hutong grandmas would fight through my toneless Mandarin and limited vocabulary to ask if I was warm enough, or cool enough, or wanted to drink some tea. I’ll never understand the Chinese love of tea in hot weather, but it was lovely to be asked. Especially after Stick had gone home, and I was alone again.

I loved the area, down back alleys to the small grocery or noodle shop, or out of the maze of twisty little passages and across Dianamen Wai Dajie to the real brewed coffee and rooftap bars of Qianhai.  I loved walking home with takeout Xinjiang barbeque and beer, and passing Beijing-ren who were living just as Beijing familes have lived for generations.

It’s sad that this neighborhood will be over soon.

Via McClatchy blog: China Rises (well worth a visit for the hutong snapshots)

Posted in Beijing, Raleigh, Yantai | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

One Hubcap ‘Cause Three Got Stolen

Posted on July 14, 2010 by Meg

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 in songs and poems suddenly made sense!

So, I’m buying a car. This  has turned out to be a hilariously awful process, just as eye-opening as that New England morning drive, only now I’m fully understanding all the things people say about used cars and used car salesmen.

I don’t really like driving, and I don’t really know that much about cars. I can drive a standard and I can check a car’s oil, and I am incredibly impressed with myself for being able to do those things.

I secretly enjoy it when computer salespeople dumb things down for me, because it’s almost always followed by that awkward look when they realize I know what I’m talking about.  But with cars, I actually don’t have the foggiest idea what we’re talking about. Oh, it need a transmisserator? Excuse me while I stare blankly. And Google.

Anyway, I’ve gotten better and better at knowing what to ask when I go to look at cars. Do you have the title in hand, and is it actually in your name or your cousin’s sister-in-law’s roommate’s name? Are you selling the car because it spectacularly failed inspection recently? Did you hit a deer immediately after posting the photos? If it’s a standard, do all of the gears work?

And, one that bitter experience has taught me to ask: DOES IT HAVE SEATS?

Posted in Raleigh | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Indie Game Mag, Issue 11

Posted on July 8, 2010 by Meg

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 of Independent Games this October 8-10 in Culver City, California. This showcase displays of some of the best indie games from around the world. The exhibit in October will feature the winners of IndieCade’s competition, as decided by voters and players, but for a bit of a sneak preview, IndieCade organizers have selected twelve submitted games for display at E3.

The selected games show some amazing creativity, truly engaging storytelling and interesting new ways to interact with a game and with other players.

Just quoted enough to get ‘Poker Face’ stuck in your head again. You’re welcome!

Via Indie Game Mag

Posted in Los Angeles, Raleigh | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Moonbase Alpha

Posted on July 6, 2010 by Meg

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 MMO. Players work cooperatively to repair damaged life support systems to bring oxygen to save the trapped NPC astronauts. You have 25 minutes before oxygen runs out for a dramatic race against the clock, or you can turn off the timer for a low-stress version.

The game is a gorgeous grey moonscape, and it’s surprisingly fun to hop around in your spacesuit. If you get too interested in bouncing around and looking at the tiny earth in the sky,  you’ll be reminded of your goal by desperate cries from your oxygen-needing crew members.  Not that I did that. I’m just saying.

I found parts of the UI pretty frustrating. The radial menus were a nice stylistic choice, but I was frustrated when options were greyed out with no explanation. I often knew how to solve a puzzle but didn’t know how to use the interface to make that happen. For example, if you’re using a coupler to join two hoses, you need to be holding the hose, and activating the coupler, NOT the other way around. If you drop an item, you may need to wiggle your avatar around for a while to get into position to pick it up. I’m not sure if the goal was low-gravity, heavy suit realism or if the UI was wonky. I’ve said this before, about certain indie games, but it’s never a good thing when design choices can be mistaken for technical glitches.

And, seriously, why add frustration to an edu game about space? Was the goal to convince boys and girls that being an astronaut isn’t that cool after all, and they should be accountants instead?

The game is quite short, although there’s replay value on larger or smaller maps, and the pre-launch press release says that Moonbase Alpha is a proof of concept for a potential NASA educational game.  Moonbase Alpha shows a lot of potential for a cooperative game, especially if it’s the rumored MMO.

The game is out today, and available free on Steam.

Also, if you ever forget to call your parents, tell them you were really busy all weekend, and mumble something about “NDA… NASA…tell you as soon as I can.” It works great!

Posted in Game Reviews, Raleigh | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ten Years

Posted on July 2, 2010 by Meg

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 in the world, even if we’re not talking about final papers and getting trashed (Note to parents and prospective employers: Don’t worry! I always did it in that order!) anymore. My college friends have, bizarrely enough, gotten married (There was a bit of teasing about whether I time my travels abroad to miss weddings. I swear I don’t! I love weddings!), bought houses,  got proper jobs, and settled in the Boston suburbs. Wow. I could never really picture that for me, and now is the time to build what is for me, and it’s simultaneously exciting and scary.

Then Bethie and I took the T back to her house. We were the only people in the car, so we got a little bit hyper.  Did I mention that my sister is awesome?

Posted in Boston | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment