i just got the audience feedback from the panel i was on at sxsw. overall, most of the comments were pretty good. but my jaw dropped when i saw this...two people asked why the panel was all women. another said "don't invite these soccer moms* again."

wow. somehow i don't think the numerous all-male panels got any comments like that. because those are normal.


(*soccer mom is another one of those special female-only put downs that have no equivalent male insult, like cougar or bitch, that are used to put women in their place.

also, i'm not even old enough to be a soccer mom)

i hung out with my new aussie friends last night, melody and jen. we were gonna see a movie. we even bought tickets. but then after two beers at the mall, jen said "lets go to a gay bar instead." so jen sold our tickets to some confused asians waiting in line.

so we went to a bar in northridge, the funky part of perth. there was a 10 dollar cover unless you wore a "uniform".. so we got a bit dressed up but the bouncer guy was like no thats not good enough, even though i had an army jacket and bandana. but he let in some guys barely dressed in uniforms (or dressed at all, really) so jen was like wtf this is lame and we left. clearly they were only letting hot boys in for free. we were not impressed. i think jen wanted to pound them.

then we almost got a massage from some sketchy asian place next door but they wouldnt show melody their certificates so we didnt (not for you! not for you!)

then we took jen home but jen was locked out so she climbed onto her roof and somehow got in by removing some of the roofing tiles.

then me and melody went to her place and i met her neighbour the israeli surfie who had pink little kids pillow and duvet covers.

the end.

i'm obsessed with how people (myself very muchly included) are obsessed with facebook and world of warcraft. meta-obsessed, if you will. i became fascinated with both independently, but the more i use both the more i see some interesting similarities between the two (and a lot of interesting contrasts, which i will probably write more about later). the main similarity is the addictive game elements in both, even though facebook is not officially a game.

i had this revelation as i read this line from the semiotics of simcity "The moment [the game] is no longer interesting is the moment when all its secrets have been discovered, its limitations exposed"

both world of warcraft and facebook are so addictive and absorbing because the limitations of both are few and ever expanding. world of warcraft has an insane amount of armor/weapons/clothes/pets/food to find, monsters to kill, lands to visit, and quests to complete. and once you're done all that, you can get the newly released expansion pack. similarly, facebook offers the promise of finding or being found by a new friend, or having another photo of yourself tagged, or being mentioned in a note, or having something new written on your wall. but in both facebook and world of warcraft, its no a known, specific goal that is appealing, but the endless stream of new and unknown potentials, of rewards that we can display for everyone to see, but only by continuing to log in. these rewards big enough to keep us interested, but small enough to leave us unsatisfied. and we keep at it because if we don't, there's the possibility of missing something.

this type of collection-based game design has becoming increasingly popular too... think nintendogs, animal crossing and of course pokemon. its interesting to see it employed in a non-game website such as facebook.

in an even further blurring of games and "real life",justin hall, one of the pioneers of blogging, created a game that kind of runs between WoW and facebook. he calls it passively multiplayer online gaming. basically it keeps track of what websites you look at and you level up based on certain criteria, such as how many reference sites you look up. its super alpha right now and appears to be down as i write this, but check it out. its a really interesting idea.

i'm doing research on the culture of facebook in attempt to narrow down my thesis topic, and came across doc mara's genius description of facebook friending "as a quick consumption deal rather like Pokemon."

its funny cuz its true. gotta catch em all!

on the eve of fono's return to canada...eddie just told me that me and fono's old kensington apartment was destroyed by a fire. took 100 firefighters to put it out. those were fono's windows in the middle, mine on the top floor (photos stolen from blogTO). it was one of my favourite and most treasured spots... beautiful sunny windows, a third floor hideaway for thinking and dreaming as the streetcars clatter by... just steps from the lcbo, the best vegetarian restaurant in toronto and my favouritest crazy mash up market in the whole world. an eerily close call, even though we are both thousands of miles away.

whats even more eerie was that our crazy landlord was obsessively paranoid when it came to fire, verging on a total phobia. she had our tiny apartment stuffed with about 10 smoke detectors and had all these insane clauses in the lease that we couldnt use electrical cords or heaters or any electrical appliance that she hadn't personally inspected. she also talked about fire a lot, so she was probably thinking about it all the time. the word on the street was that her dad died in a fire in that same building years ago. i guess there are dangers to living above a sketchy restaurant. she must be freaking out right now.