Peter Hentges Broke jefftidball.com…

…but it was not his fault.

For a long time, the links-to-comments for shitfilter entries and required reading entries have been broken. (Look to your right and scroll down. They look like this: "[0]." Those are links to comments people have left about the shitfiltrates and readings.)

I was aware the links were broken, but never took the time to fix the problem, because it was fiddly, required technical research, and no one ever made any comments about those things, anyway. (But then, how could they? The links were broken.)

Anyway, perennial troublemaker Peter Hentges somehow managed to leave a comment about Garfield Minus Garfield. (Though a third-party browser that accesses MovableType's guts directly? I have no idea. He is wily, that's all I know.) When I approved the comment, MovableType elected to melt down instead of incrementing the number between the brackets.

So, anyway, jefftidball.com has been coming up with a blank page for the past two days (thanks to everyone who e-mailed and stopped me in the hall at work), but now it doesn't. Those of you who follow all this via RSS probably had no idea. You go, RSS readers.

Now Featuring 33% More Tidballs Than Ever Before*

Introducing Adam Jeffrey Tidball
Born Jan 26, 2008 at 6:56 pm
7 lbs, 1 oz ~ 18-1/2 inches

* Abby begs to differ with this math, but as she is a dog, (a) begging is her lot, and (b) we simply tell her that it all adds up, and she lacks the brainpower to prove us wrong.

You Know, The Guy Who Tells You What To Do

I'm throwing this out there, as an honest question:

Has your boss done anything useful for you in the last, say, month? Something that helped you get your job done, or that made you happy, or that made your world better?

What?

SquareMans

My buddy Matt Colville, from my Decipher back-in-the-days, has just launched SquareMans, a new blog on gaming and related whatnot. Matt's a sharp guy, and his observations on both (i.e., "gaming" and "whatnot") are frankly fantastic.

Start with the latest, or start with the inaugural "About" post. See if I care. Just get thee to SquareMans.

Gameplaywright = Today

For the last two months or so, Will Hindmarch and I have been working to create a website for our writing about games and stories, and especially the area where they overlap.

Gameplaywright goes live today.

I'm all kinds of excited about doing this. One of the biggest reasons, and non-obvious, is that it will give me an opportunity to get better as a game designer and writing by forcing me to write critically about games and stories on a schedule.

There's this truism about the best way to learn things that I've heard comes from the Army. To learn something solid, you should "watch one, do one, teach one." That is, you should watch someone else do the thing you're trying to learn, then try it yourself, and then teach someone else to do it. Gameplaywright is Will and I shooting for the third. God knows we've both watched, played, and designed plenty of games. But there's an expertise you can only gain by trying to explain the process to others. And that's the main point of launching Gameplaywright, as far as I'm concerned.

So drop by! (That URL, again? Thanks for asking! It's gameplaywright.net!) Don't be shy about blogging it, e-mailing the URL to your colleagues and gamer buddies, and hassling your relatives to visit when you see them over the holidays. That's what Will and I will be doing!

The Post Office, They Have A Stamp For Everything

Prognostication #712

In the year 2059, the average receipt from The Home Depot is 53 meters long. In addition to a gift receipt, a customer service survey offering a chance to win $100,000 (or, approximately $11 in 2007 dollars), and a copy of your signature, it includes your annual tax forms, a selection of knock-knock jokes, and a photocopy of your butt. The cashier must change the tape twice during the average single-customer checkout. It is common practice for shoppers to hire Sherpas to carry these receipts home.

It Never Quite Took Off #292

When The Price is Right aired on the island of Catan, the excitement went out of it completely.

Impact

Half of journalism students polled would give up their right to vote, permanently, for a million dollars.

For anyone serious about outcomes over symbolism — substance over style, if you will — that trade strikes me as a no-brainer. I mean, these things are true: A vote's a gigantically symbolic thing, a million bucks ain't what it used to be, and it would be a disaster if everyone did this deal.

But which option gives you a greater impact on the things you care about? Wisely investing a sizable chunk of cash and using the proceeds cleverly (whether you think of them in terms of your additional free time, your shiny new loudspeaker, or even just as your ad buy fund), or casting a single vote over and over and over again among hundreds, thousands, or millions of other single votes?

(via kottke)

Fan Studies

From the Amazon description page ("Editorial Reviews" section) of Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Media Consumers in a Digital Age:

Starting with an interview on the current state of fan studies, this volume maps the core theoretical and methodological issues in Fan Studies.

Internet, I dispute the existence of theoretical and methodological issues related to "Fan Studies."

I'll go one more: I dispute "Fan Studies," from wall to wall.

Seriously, Internet.

I draw the line.