curate the wario odd who?

I'm sure you could make a pretty graph out of the increasing gaps between ffwd posts, but heck, I'm still here, so I'll stop whining about it, shall I?

First up, now is as good a time as many to mention that my role at the Internet Archive has shifted a bit. Before, I was helping out with a children's library project and doing some 'black ops' software collection development (which I'm still working on, setting up an IGDA special interest group soon, and I also met with Henry Lowood at Stanford today, and he mentioned the first third of the amazing, gigantic Cabrinety Collection of videogames now has a basic catalog available.) But I've now moved into a more general, long-term Archive.org 'website curator/community guy' role, which means I help organize and add new audio/video/software collections, check and approve uploads, and answer users' questions. I love the Archive mightily, and the hours fit really well with my Slashdot/Slashdot Games work, so I'm delighted, naturally.

Oh, and my parents' visit was a whole bunch of fun, both around the Bay Area (during which we introduced them to the delights of Todai), and down in San Luis Obispo (where the 'you won a free lunch' business card in the cafe we ate in belonged to somebody from Oddworld Inhabitants, in an odd game-related twist.)

Apart from that, fun has been had playing Wario Ware Inc. on the GameCube (the same insane GBA fun, but 4-player? I'll buy that for 30 dollars!), watching the tragic Paul McGann-starring Dr.Who TV movie in preparation for the good Doctor's next reboot (strange that Sylvester McCoy is such a genuine, compelling stand-out as the outgoing Time Lord - time for a reappraisal?), and listening to the Comfort Stand net.label @ Archive.org (continuously surprising 'outsider music', exotica, kitsch, and beautiful randomness.)

[Note to game industry friends - won't make it to E3 because it's so close to my book deadline and I can't afford the time out - but if you're in the Bay Area before or after, mail me.]

Parents Ninja World LJ Addiction?

So, my parents get in from England tomorrow, yay - we're going to hang out in the Bay Area, and also drive down to San Luis Obispo for a couple of days - we're staying at the Madonna Inn, with its amazing variety of rooms, and also visiting the always-beautiful Hearst Castle. [As an odd aside, my dad is the first image returned if you Google for pictures of me - I'm looking forward to assuming his hair style gradually :P]

In other news, hm... Slashdot Games is still motoring along at about 40 posts per week, giving everyone a decent-ish mix of the mainstream, the indie, and the odd, and still expanding the readership - and, OK, i was a little flattered that Kieron Gillen, the thinking man's Stuart Campbell, pegged us as "always worth reading due to it picking up a more interesting and wider selection of stories than most game tickers." Also good to be mentioned in the same breath as the ever-curmudgeonly UK Resistance, who've run out of Sega consoles to lick.

Media consumption has been minimal, thanks to book creation, but Ninja Tune's Zen TV DVD has been revolving swiftly in the DVD player (the Jaga Jazzist videos are pretty much genius, for one), and on the 'virtual world' gaming front, I'm currently debating whether to sign up for free trials of Second Life, There, both, or, uhh, neither - will update if I do.

Finally, insanely addictive website of the week/month/year - the last 40 LiveJournal-posted images, constantly updated. Pics seem to vary between nudity, teen self-portraits, hobbits, bizarre drawings, and, right now, Easter bunnies. Completely, brainsuckingly addictive, anyhow, and either a haunting indictment of today's Internet youth, or just a whole bunch of fun. I vote for the latter.

Developer Gama Torrents Curbed?

Lawks-a-lordy, there's lots going on. Let's try to run through it all, and not get all confused and disorientated and fall down.

So, it was Game Developer's Conference last week, and as well as providing meta-coverage for Slashdot Games, I was asked to be 'interviewer-at-large' by Gamasutra, and ended up doing six interviews (free reg. req.) with people I thought were intriguing - Richard Marks of Sony R+D on creating the Eye Toy hardware, Chris Bateman of International Hobo on writing and design outsourcing for games, Daniel James of Three Rings on the marvellous Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates, Jason Busby of 3DBuzz.com on his VTM (video training module) free goodness, Kevin O'Hara of Sony Online Entertainment on the Star Wars Galaxies community, and Gonzalo Frasca of Copenhagen University/Powerful Robot Games on academics/political gaming - conducting in-person interviews with a digital voice recorder was a really nice change from all that sitting in front of a computer.

When I had a spare moment at GDC, which wasn't that often, I moderated the open IGDA roundtables about game preservation, as entertainingly reported on by the guys at Insert Credit - there's a lot of momentum into this software/game preservation thing, it's just harnessing it. I also have a Soapbox column in the new Game Developer Magazine about the whole kit and caboodle.

Other than that, I'm working a lot on the O'Reilly book, which is due, yikes, really quite soon, and occasionally being torn away for a minute or two by entertaining distractions, like Jason 'Loonyboi' Bergman's v.fun IF Quake, which I surreptitiously helped Betatest - try calling up the Elder Gods in-game for a silly Easter Egg that I suggested, heh.

Oh, LegalTorrents is still going well - we added old zombie movie Night Of The Living Dead just recently, since it seems to be public domain in the States, and it's getting plenty of downloads - also, there's an audio interview with me on IT Conversations talking about LegalTorrents and the Internet Archive.

Finally, the media watching of recent has been limited to TV like Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 1 on DVD (obviously, but gloriously semi-unwatchable), books like Neil Gaiman's Stardust (evocative faerie leanings, indeed), and games like Muppet Party Cruise (we need to try the mini-games on their own, the longform game was pretty much unplayable!) Stuff like that, y'know.