Spent most of my weekend going to an interesting day conference in Luton about videogames. The first videogame-thing I've been to since last Summer. Has got me thinking that maybe I should take some steps to include games in my project, or more accurately find one participant who self-identifies as a gamer so I can position myself in that field. Or ( Read more... )

I now understand how a cup of tea can be refreshing in the heat. After hours of trawling through Hay-on-Wye offerings I was both hot and real thirsty, and I knocked back a restorative cup of tea super fast, with the gentle scorching sensation in my throat making me feel cool and soothed. This has never happened to me before, and I don't think I ( Read more... )

Despite all the hype, technoscience is not the Greatest Story
Ever Told, but it is playing powerfully to large, widely
distributed audiences. - DH ( Read more... )

Have finally returned home, after a week of varied adventures. I'm choosing to gloss the whole thing as 'partying', although some was of the social-theory-orgy variety. Feels like perhaps more than a week. Having failed to go regularly to my spanking new shiny gym has made me realise how busy I've been recently. I begin every new week with a sense ( Read more... )

Have been thinking a lot about the past and the passage of time for the last few days. My Sam weekend wasn't as whimsical and charming as the last one, but was still good fun in a more low-key, grown-up way. Some accounts put this as my tenth year, which feels like it deserves some marking ( Read more... )

I am now officially looking forward to the weekend. Actually I have been really really really looking forward to it for approximately three weeks, as the last one was terrific. I can't work out whether it was so great because I was different, or because it was different. I've definitely been a lot more outgoing recently, and that worked so well ( Read more... )

Just went to an interesting talk by my supervisor where she mentioned MMOs and gold farmers. I've heard the story before a few times. She's talking about the exploitation of low-paid workers to support the play of richer players in the west. So that the fantasy of mastery can be purchased, while somebody else's labour is obscured ( Read more... )

Finally saw Cold Comfort Farm last night, after almost a year of expectations. There were fantastic moments, like realising that Stephen Fry was playing Mr Mybug, and essentially is him in real life. But overall I was a bit disappointed. The humour wasn't relentless enough, and a lot of the low-key charm was pushed a bit, too. Even the no butter in ( Read more... )

Just settling down to my lunch and am assaulted by the horror of no crisps. A terrible oversight on my part. I pop downstairs to the cafe to make good my mistake. And no cafe. Fuckin Baby Jesus. But of course he's not a baby by this feast day. He's a grown man. A grown man of the kind of potency that can keep my from my crisps !!! ( Read more... )

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