Stuff I Wrote in 2014

The end of 2013 was a turning point for me as far as my writing goes. I couldn’t be more grateful for the great response to my Kotaku feature story on the Chicago indie gaming scene, and my fantastic internship at PC Mag made my actual journalism school graduation six months later feel like just a formality. In 2014 I tried to keep that freelance momentum going and ended up writing a bunch of stories for a ton of awesome publications that, a few years ago, I never imagined I’d break into so soon. I think I did some of my best work in 2014, and it just so happened to fit in a nice, chronological, top ten list.

The "Good" Gamer's Dilemma

My first, and hopefully last, article on GamerGate, specifically the untenable position of its moderates. There's a lot to it.

Check it out!

Video Games' Afrofuturism Frontier

My first feature for Media Diversified examines what video games could stand to learn from the Afrofuturism artistic aesthetic. Check it out!

http://mediadiversified.org/2014/07/19/video-games-afrofuturism-frontier/

Uh Oh Politics: RIP #MintTheCoin

One of my biggest shortcomings as a political observer is my apathy towards and inability to understand a lot of economic matters. However, when the idea of minting a trillion dollar platinum coin straight out of a “Simpsons” episode was proposed as a way of dealing with the debt crisis I was instantly on board. Not only would it solve the problem it also would affirm my long held belief that money is essentially meaningless. Plus, the whole “it’s legal in that it’s not illegal” aspect of it just sounds like such a crazy scheme that I would love watching Republicans get blindsided by it. It’s like the 2008 election episode of “South Park” in that everything was just a dumb set-up.

But alas, according to the Treasury Department, it shall not be.


I need 1,000,000,000,000 coin coffins.

I'm Still Here

Hey it’s the holiday season and what not so now I have time to blog and do other secret stuff again. Isn't that great?

I’m keeping this first post short because it’s my blog to do what I want with. However, I do have a few things to say about that tragedy that’s been in the news these days. Obviously a guy who’d write an article like this isn't too sentimental but come on, this is different. Maybe it was seeing all the kids in the airport on the way back home. Maybe it was seeing Lincoln and how politics can actually get stuff done sometimes. In any case, there are way better places to read about this issue than on this vanity blog but if articles like this don’t make it clear enough, I’m really liberal and I have an opinion about this.

People say this shouldn't be a political issue but it is. To say we shouldn't be talking about this on a policy level only enables the forces that allow things like this to keep happening. People blame violent movies and games while saying plenty of other things besides guns kill people like knives and cars. The difference is movies and games entertain, knives cut vegetables and cars get you from here to there. Guns are only for killing people. For me, to be against at least restricting them a little more is incomprehensible at this point.

 We have to talk about this.

Good Job Everybody

So says zonk.

#4moreyears

The President America Deserves but Not the One it Needs Right Now

Herman Cain

Bane

Herman Bane

Halloween 2012

Uh Oh Politics: Awareness

“What? Oh yeah, there’s like an election happening. It’s an important one too like the President or the Supreme Court or something. I guess I should pay attention this time. What?” – like half of America every four years.

Due to this predictable cycle of vague political awareness increasing throughout the country, everyone that can stand to make a few bucks always rushes in to capitalize on the general confusion. I for one think it’s fascinating.

Stuff I Did This Week/Uh Oh Politics: 9/7/2012/DNC 2012 Edition vs. Capcom

I was at the Democratic National Convention this week and wrote some stuff.


Day One: Yes We Can, Again

Day Two: It's Kind of a Big Deal

Day Three: What's Next for New Jersey?


I find it funny that this year I didn't have a press pass but did way more actual journalism than four years ago.


Also I reviewed this game.

Motor World Car Factory Review


Also I played Bastion and The World Ends With You on the iPad. They're pretty good.




#MoneyDoesn'tExist

Uh Oh Politics: Stuff I'm Doing at the 2012 DNC

http://www.nj.com/gloucester-county/index.ssf/2012/09/pro-obama_blogger_prepares_for.html

Four years ago at the last Democratic National Convention I got the chance to blog about my experiences there for my local newspaper The Gloucester County Times. I'm still convinced that bit of journalism is what got me into Medill in the first place. Anyway, I'm doing it again and the first blog entry is posted here. Check out www.nj.com for more updates throughout the week.

Uh Oh Politics: Summer Daze

I went to the White House this weekend for a New Jersey Community Leaders summit or something and it was actually a pretty good discussion. Speakers included various special assistants to President Obama including Liz Fowler, the architect behind the recently passed (and thank God they did by the way) health reform laws. To top it all off, I got to tour the White House itself after waiting outside in absurdly hot weather. The funny thing is though, I’m not actually allowed to go into much more detail than that seeing as I’m the press and not really a “NJ Community Leader.” Whatever, this was just the inspiration and jumping off point for the real point of this article: the lovable insanity of summertime politics.

Uh Oh Politics: Get On Board!

Today

Uh Oh Politics: The Cycle

Not to spoil too much of the very new and very awesome The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword but towards the end a character makes this curse, "This is not the end. My hate... never perishes. It is born anew in a cycle with no end!" It's fitting that this has come out right in the middle of another presidential election spectacle. One of the most fascinating aspects of growing up fairly aware of politics is year after year slowly understanding just how cyclical the whole thing is. It's one thing to read history books making connections between different eras but it's a whole other experience entirely to watch the darn thing happen again in real-time.

Uh Oh Politics: Andrew Breitbart

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this but the circumstances of my life have forced to me to have a somewhat decent familiarity with politics. It’s not that I mind. Politics are fascinating and it’s fun to go from thinking about games that ultimately don't matter (video games) to games that do (elections). What with the spectacle of idiocy that is the Republican search for their presidential candidate continuing to… continue, this is as good a time as any to maybe start writing more stuff about this nonsense.

Also, everyone should know that I’m incredibly biased. I’m not going to pretend I’m not liberal. I’m not really going to try to be fair. What else is a blog for than to just write down your opinions anyway? Just know that going in.

What’s the actual topic of this post? The speech given by Andrew Breitbart, a reverse-Michael Moore-ish figure and creator of conservative blogs like "Big Hollywood", "Big Journalism" and "Big Government", I had recently had the pleasure of listening to.

Oh hey

Osama Bin Laden is dead. 

I was thinking about writing how this'll affect the upcoming elections or how, even in these circumstances, celebrating the death of somebody is a little weird.

But not now. Yeah, closure is good. This is pretty cool. Really cool.



New post coming soonish

By the way Kotaku is a gaming blog. I know right?

Old Stuff Part 3- Semi-Serious

So while may passion is for writing about entertainment and other stuff that doesn't matter, sometimes I have written pieces with slightly more weight.

Granted, music is entertainment, but my article for BlackBoard, Northwestern's African-American magazine, is about music and race relations. Sort of serious stuff actually.

CLICK TO ENLARGE