After almost 30 years as the de facto gaming magazine, 2009 will not see the infamous Electronic Gaming Monthly April Fool's Day joke. Part of me can't help but feel sad about that.

When I try to remember how I developed such an affinity for Interactive Fiction, I find myself at a loss. Its hey-day was much before my time, the genre all but wiped out with the advent of new-fangled VGA graphics. I guess it happened a bit by circumstance. I spent much of my internet-browsing time scouring the internet for "game makers." ( Read more... )

The good old tale of the "Christmas Miracle" is a trite old thing that tends to be hashed and rehashed every season, reflected in our eyes in the form of heart-warming family TV specials new and old. It's true, the general feeling of good will toward man seems to spark the belief that magical things can happen during the holidays. Christmas morning ( Read more... )

Somewhere in between, the month of November is lost.  As soon as the shops’ Halloween displays go down, it seems as though the Christmas ones go straight up.  Thanksgiving is given the barest of acknowledgement, overshadowed by the coming Black Friday, itself a ritual “celebration” of the month to come.

November is also National Novel Writing ( Read more... )

I remember the beaches. Behind them old homes stood, old wood and brick houses that had been in their place since before I was born, before my mother was born, some before my mother's mother was born. There were old stores that had ice cream in old freezers, old restaurants with old menus and old staff that remembered your name. There were old toy ( Read more... )

There's a tired old axiom that goes something like: “If you hold onto something long enough, sure enough, it will come back in style.”

I think, in ways, it has never been more true. As each decade defines itself, the new millennium has enrobed itself with the idea that not only should our clothes look like clothes from another era, but they should ( Read more... )

Memories retained from childhood always seem to evoke sweeter sensations than their sources would warrant. An old television show, a silly song, the smell of wet asphalt; these things, if experienced for the first time, are rarely in the realm of extraordinary. Yet, armed with the heavy perfume of impalpable nostalgia, these fragments of ( Read more... )

It's quite isolating when you realize you are in the vast minority of opinion on a subject. That said, I can't help but verbalize how utterly baffled I am by America's obsession with fragrances. Not a single commercial break lilts by without at least three wholly separate olfactory assaults. Concentrated artificial scent gives me a severe headache ( Read more... )

I have the infamous habit of playing pianos I really should not be playing. Likely you have seen them before: pianos sitting woeful and lonely in a lobby or salon, their keys displayed unabashed and immodest in some sort of vain hope that it can feel the caress of a pianist before its due appointment, one that night or the afternoon, or in the ( Read more... )

My family and I are prone to scour through furniture stores and old antique shops, scanning through the old and new, the beautiful and...not so beautiful. It's undeniable that with some of these pieces, especially those with the character handed down to them by caring hands centuries ago, there is something magical in their craftsmanship. But... ( Read more... )