I avoided writing about the election last week, but after a rather spectacular (and depressing) evening watching CBC I thought I’d throw together a few observations from the 2011 Canadian Federal Election.

The single most troubling argument I’m seeing today goes something like this: beating Harper should have been the only priority, so it’s really the fault of either Liberal or NDP voters in various ridings for NOT voting more strategically to block the Conservatives.

Now, while I am pretty goddam distressed that Harper has a majority, this ‘vote-splitting’ argument doesn’t sit right. Read More

Last week I finished reading James Gleick’s absolutely brilliant new book, The Information: a History, a Theory, a Flood.
I really can’t recommend this one highly enough. If Neil deGrasse Tyson has taken over Carl Sagan’s project of science education on TV and the web, then Gleick is very definitely continuing that legacy in print. His writing is very accessible, but more importantly it’s interesting. He writes the story of science, detailing the process and the collaborative efforts of brilliant minds around the word. This is not a textbook, nor is it a superficial summary of only the basic facts. Gleick writes about Information and Communication studies with passion and a deep understanding of the material.

Or so I thought…

You see, it turns out that Gleick is WRONG. And STUPID. And MEAN.
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Another Game 7 tonight, after an excruciating Game 7 last night, and for a nerd I actually find myself caring a great deal.
Not ACTUAL caring, as these games don’t affect my reality in any meaningful way, but caring in the way that I care about TV shows and movies and other such stuff.
Which is precisely why I’ve had to take a step back this year and ask some hard questions. First and foremost: Am I becoming a sports fan? And if so… Am I becoming a jock?

In the traditional folklore, there are Nerds and there are Jocks, and the two sides will never see eye to eye. (Jocks tend to be taller, for one thing…) Read More

I pay for cable. In fact, I pay a fair amount of money for cable.
I’m not one of those crackpots who subscribe to HBO just to watch a few episodes of sexy big-budget Fantasy, but I do send a Canadian telecom more money than I care to.
Which is strange, given that I also pay for Netflix. And I download TV shows from the web.

So why do I still pay for cable?
Because I’m an idiot. Because of AMC.

I started watching Mad Men last year (on Netflix). I watched two seasons of Breaking Bad (on DVD). Both are great shows, and I highly recommend them to you.
When AMC announced their third show, The Walking Dead, I was pretty excited. Zombies on television. It makes sense.
And yes, some critics went after the writing. And yes, the network has replaced all of the writers. It was still a brilliant show.

But for me, AMC sealed the deal three weeks ago with the launch of The Killing, adapted from a Danish mini-series. I’ve been glued to my TV each Sunday. It’s well-paced, well-acted, and genuinely riveting stuff.
And it’s got me thinking that Patton Oswalt was right.
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An embarrassing truth about me:
I play video games.
Not just any video games, either… the nerdy ones.

For a few years, I played World of Warcraft. If you’re wondering – and I know you are – I played a tauren shaman and a troll priest. I got waaaay too involved with end-game raiding and theory-crafting. If you know what those are, you’re a colossal nerd. If you don’t know, consider yourself lucky, happy, and far more socially adept than me.

This ‘phase’ came to an end, as my gaming friend and I turned our sedentary attentions to Blizzard’s other great franchise, Starcraft. Having played the original Starcraft, we were quite excited to try the long-awaited sequel, Starcraft 2, or SC2 for those too lazy to type entire words. (lrn 2 play, n00b…) Read More

I’ve recently started doing some work on fan cultures with my friend Ben, which reminded me of a short piece I wrote a few years back for a graduate seminar at OISE.
Seeing as how my web designer will kill me if I make my first post about the blog itself, I thought I’d start with a series of ‘media meditations’ instead.

In 1986, my grandfather gave me three cassette tapes for my birthday – the first three albums I ever owned. The first was ‘Combat Rock’ by the Clash. It took me a decade to understand how cool it was to get a Clash album from a grandparent.

The second was ‘Rock Around the Clock’ by Bill Hailey and the Comets. I was 22 when I first watched the film ‘The Blackboard Jungle’, and realized that Bill Hailey was the Joe Strummer of the 1950s.

The third album was the only one that I liked at the time. In fact, I wore the tape out, and had to buy a new one. Then I bought the CD. I now own the special boxed set version. The album is ‘Born to Run’ by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Read More