Desperately seeking wonder.

As an avid gamer for over 20 years, I’ve begun to wonder if I’ll ever feel the immersive sense of wonder brought on by Infocom or the old Sierra adventure games. Maybe I have become jaded over the years—many a gamer lost faith during the dreaded CD-ROM/Full Motion Video ‘Game’ era—and look at today’s over-licensed,…

Klingon Fairy Tales

“Goldilocks Dies With Honor at the Hands of the Three Bears” —Klingon Fairy Tales (McSweeney) Silly. Making the rounds of the Net. I actually like “Other Poll Questions That May One Day Appear on an Unnamed Internet News Website, Given Its Recently Asked Question “Have You Ever Been in an Accident Involving a Plane?” Following the…

Playwright Wilson says he's dying

August Wilson, 60, one of America’s greatest playwrights, has told the Post-Gazette he is dying of liver cancer. “It’s not like poker, you can’t throw your hand in,” he said by phone from Seattle. “I’ve lived a blessed life. I’m ready.” —Christopher Rawson —Playwright Wilson says he’s dying (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) I’ll be teaching Wilson’s Fences in…

HOAX! Did Sgt. Dan Kennings die in Iraq? Not really.Did Sgt. Dan Kennings even exist? Well, no.So who was that little girl writing the letters?

Word that Sgt. Dan Kennings had been killed in Iraq crushed spirits in the Daily Egyptian newsroom. The stocky, buzz-cut soldier befriended by students at the university newspaper was dead, and the sergeant’s little girl–a precocious, blond-haired child they’d grown to love–was now an orphan. They all knew that Kodee Kennings’ mother had died when…

The Story of the Iraq Museum

Cuneiform, the world’s first script, was born in southern Iraq, and carbon dating indicates it originated between 3400 and 3300 B.C., writes Robert Biggs in one of the book’s finest essays. There must have been quite a burst of innovation, because within a century or two the wheel appeared as well. It was quickly put…

WTF is a Podcast?

Podcasts get their name from combining iPods with radio broadcasting. It all started when a few folks started recording indie talk radio programs and releasing them online, intending them to be uploaded to iPods and listened to on the road. Of course, Apple, knowing what was happening, decided to push the technology into the mainstream…