I do declare!

Why Chapel Hill, you're as refreshing as a cool glass of tea on a hot August night. In fact, if I didn't know better, I'd have thought you were trying to woo me away from your sultry cousin Virginia.

Despite my hatred of North Carolina (on par with my feelings about New Jersey), I must say I'm simply delighted to be staying at the Carolina Inn at UNC Chapel Hill with its richly appointed entrance, lovely grounds, elegant sunroom, and delectable four-star fare. What a charming seductress of a town, all cafes and college cottages tucked between flowering butterfly trees and long slips of brick pathways. I'm simply mesmerized at the enchanting atmosphere of the places I've seen so far: UNC (I linked their awesome "Virtual Musuem of Univeristy History" - check it out), Vespa Cibobuono, and Franklin Street.

I'm half tempted to take back what I said about this state earlier this year.

Then again, even though you did launch such fine acts as The Squirrel Nut Zippers, Ben Folds Five, James Taylor, and those fine hunks of redneck rockabilly Southern Culture on the Skids, (and soccer great Mia Hamm), I don't think I'm prepared to love you as a whole entity just yet.

We'll see what happens next month when I come here again.

Kenyattasaurus Rex is as real as it gets: A GDC Overview

I take it back. In my post about GDC07 I stated that video games were pointless. I was wrong. In this small space between today and the future, I am simultaneously excited and terrified.

Nifty things I saw:
The very funny, hip and talented Shigeru Miyamoto
A marriage proposal
Awards
Don't be surprised if you see new games from here - these independent games were amazing.
I Am 8-Bit (Go Burgertime!)
Pirates!
An excellent presentation by the GDC geek of the week.
The Expo booths (I'll have pics up soon, in the meantime you can find some images here)

Impressions:
The people we encountered at the Playstation pavilion and manning the booths were consistently assholes (the night of the booth crawl, at the expo, and in the hallway). Given that my husband gives them a hefty chunk of change every year, I found this disconcerting. We will be spending more money elsewhere after that experience.

Within the next 10 years, games and sims will be ubiquitous. From education to entertainment, hi-fidelity technology is changing our future landscape. And wars will never be the same.

Video games are our future. Not just mine, but yours too. The world of simulation is rapidly replacing the world we live in.

That the future is a combination of serious games and casual games.

More karaoke is coming!

After talking to hundreds of industry insiders, I found that careers are still possible, but it is a competitive industry. While this isn't news, I'm not going to go into everything I learned as that would include the entire report I'm currently preparing for my company and really, do you want to read that?