Yesterday one of my web email accounts was compromised and someone sent a mass email to my contact list saying that I had been mugged in London and was deprived of all my cash and credit cards, and that if someone couldn’t wire me cash I would be thrown out of my hotel and forced to sleep on the street.

I learned of this scam because Curt called me in the morning and asked “Are you at the hotel now?” To which I replied, “Huh?” And after a good laugh and a chat with our IT gurus (shout outs to Brandon, Jeff, and Dave), we discovered the source of the problem and I had the account frozen.

So, if you got an email from me yesterday asking for money, you can ignore it. If I ever do find myself in such a predicament, you can rest assured that the plea for help will have much better grammar than the fake did. Even in the most dire of need, one should make time for proper spelling and punctuation.

I must say it was heartwarming to see how many people contacted me to make sure I was okay. I even got calls from some fansite folks I got to know in the EQ2 days, which was really cool. Some days I think I will end up despised and alone like old Mr. Scrooge, but it’s nice to know that I haven’t reached that point yet.

Hope you all had a great Christmas and avoided getting mugged overseas!

Happy Thanksgiving! I have a tremendous amount to be thankful for–a healthy family, a job I love, and great friends to cherish.

Soon I’ll be posting my year-end music roundup, and may even have a thing or two to say about game design sometime. Have a happy holiday, everyone.

From my 10th floor hotel room, it seems like I can see about a thousand miles. Austin is flatter and greener than I expected. Also more humid, which may explain the green.

Our AGDC presentation is at 1:30pm Tuesday. Owlchick and I spent the afternoon polishing the slides (yeah yeah, we were supposed to have the final version done a couple weeks ago) so I think it will go well.

I’m looking forward to lunch with Hartsman and hope to see other old friends from SOE. Should be a good time.

If the presentation tanks, at least there will be BBQ. Oh yes, there will be BBQ.

For as long as I live, I’ll never forget the things I saw and heard eight years ago. My eyes well with tears as I think back on it even now.

I’ll also never forget the pride I felt in the days following the tragedy when we came together as a country, a people. The American flag never had a great deal of meaning for me before that day, but it does now.

God bless the families of the fallen, on this day and all those yet to come.

Have you ever actually browsed your junk email folder? Sure, there’s nasty virus-laden stuff you need to watch out for, but some spammers are including a wealth of inspired writing in their messages that a student of modern poetry can’t help but find captivating.

Check out this gem, found in a message entitled “Restore your organs ability and productivity now”:

but let me tell you thats not how it will really go i imagine most kids will want to stay home and play computer games but their moms will make them come and so theyll grudgingly put on a some church pants and skirts so i was wondering if you could help me know how to bring the romance back into our modern life its not really that important no matter the dress or the menu we just want the kids to come to feel the spirit of the temple but its like you said anne when you dont use your imagination to make life beautiful how much you miss what an adventure it is

Marvelous! This passage has a stream-of-consciousness quality to it that I admire. I knew many would-be poets at university who had no hope of matching such majesty.

Later in the same email, the author shifts focus to a new subject framed in the context of modern life:

breakfast i always have two eggs and salsa always i dont really get sick of it and it would really stink if i did because theres not a lot out there for breakfast actually when you are at your ideal weight and ovulating regularly you can have any kind of whole grain hot cereal without a problem you know steel cut oats etc i am not quite there yet berries and grapes are pretty low on the glycemic index and i have those too oh and i love cottage cheese with fruit grant and i listened and danced to his music on valentines day

Fascinating! As an audience, we are enthralled by the narrator’s candor on her eating and ovulation habits. Yet it is the hint of romance at the end of the passage which truly captivates us, leaving us to wonder as to the identity of “grant” and the mysterious composer of the music to which our protagonist danced.

This modern epic draws to a close with yet another slice-of-life observation:

do you have to be obsessed with yarn and needles and hooks like i am to think that is the most inviting little space youve ever seen when cate is too scared to go downstairs penny will go with her and everything is all right she lets cate dress her up for weddings or try to ride her or pull her by the tail almost daily and even knowing the torture she will soon endure she gets so excited when cate gets home from school

Using yarn and needles as metaphors for our fear of institutions such as weddings and school is beyond brilliant. You’d be hard-pressed to find social commentary of this caliber among today’s published so-called poets.

I hope you’ll realize that a wealth of reading wonder awaits in your junk folder. It is perhaps the ultimate irony that beauty and thought of this quality is being relegated to the trash bins of modern culture. The future of our society is alive and well, not within the cold walls of the classroom, but inside the nurturing womb of the spam filter.

Okay, it’s not technically my book per se, but I did coauthor a chapter with my old (and I do mean old) comrade, Tracy “Owlchick” Seamster. The book is called Writing for Video Game Genres: From FPS to RPG, and its contributors come from the Writers SIG of the IGDA. Our chapter is, as you might guess, about writing for MMOGs. The rest of the book covers pretty much any type of video game you can imagine.

Obviously the focus is on writing, so you don’t have to worry about me jamming a bunch of opinionated design theories down your throat (after all, you get those for free on this blog). If for some reason you find this book appealing, you can pad my wallet with a hefty .002 cents per copy royalty by ordering the book directly from the publisher, via Amazon, or from Barnes & Noble. Word is it may even show up in your local bookstore at some point.

Let me warn you ahead of time that I had to hold back a bit on some of the details I would have otherwise included had my current project been on the shelves already (have to protect the secret sauce, you know), but I think the stuff Tracy and I put together is nonetheless useful for anyone thinking of becoming a writer for an MMOG.

I’m most proud of the fact that I now have something tangible to show my mom to explain what I do for a living. Video games she doesn’t get, but a book she will understand.

Some days are just crappier than others. (Watch the video too. The police chief can barely keep a straight face.)

I’m back from NYCC and had a great time. The panel on 38 Studios went well, even though there have been a few complaints about us not talking about the game–this despite the very first slide and the panel intro making extremely clear that we would not be talking about the game. Most people attending understood what we were trying to accomplish, and our discussion of studio process and answers to the fan questions actually hinted at quite a lot of what we’re doing, if you knew what to listen for.

NYCC is great. It is smaller than the San Diego version, but in a good way. The crowds are still huge but you can actually make your way down the aisles reasonably well and interesting things can stand out rather than get lost in the crowd. I would recommend the show to everyone, but then NYCC will keep growing in size and soon it will be just as unruly as SDCC.

I didn’t see as many costume tragedies as last year. Sure, there were a few Slave Leias that shouldn’t have left the house, but on the whole there were few attrocities. The best costume was one I saw on Sunday: a young woman bravely dressed as Poison Ivy wearing only some carefully placed leaf appliques and a flesh-colored thong. I don’t think she had an ounce of fat on her body, and needless to say she drew quite a crowd.

Not that I was leering, mind you.

This weekend I’m headed back to the Big Apple with several 38 Studios cohorts to take part in a panel discussion at New York Comic Con. The theme of the panel is “MMO Development: Year Two.” It’s a follow-up to last year’s panel in which we talked about, uh, year one of the studio.

So this raises the question of exactly why we’re travelling to the heart of Yankee country when we’ve made clear that we’re not going to unveil the details of Copernicus this year. Well, first of all, Ten Ton Hammer asked us to do it and we like those guys. Second, it gives the MMOG fan a peek behind the curtains at how development works. Finally, its Comic Con! We’re geeks at heart and love to soak it all in.

If you happen to be attending the show and would like to say hello, our panel starts at 1:45pm on Saturday. I’ll be wearing my Power Girl costume.

Happy Holidays, whichever you may celebrate. I’ll go ahead and call out Christmas because, well, it’s Christmas.

I do plan to write about games again at some point, as soon as I can figure out something worthwhile to say. Honestly, despite some relatively big news in the latter months of this year, I can’t think of all that much to talk about that hasn’t been said already or wouldn’t be in bad taste for me to comment on.

Before the year is out I’ll be posting my picks for the best music of 2008. Until then, please keep me in you thoughts as I’m currently freezing my nethers off visiting my homeland of Minnesota.