Blogs Everywhere

Everyone has a blog these days, and Chris Kohler (a friend of mine from Kanazawa, for those who do not know him) is no exception! He had been blogging over at Pitas.com for a while, then content there petered out. He managed to avoid telling me about his new blog, Game|Life, but I have ways of finding out. Everybody talks.

So the discovery of Kohler's new blog has given me a good excuse to give the readers of my humble ranting a treat. Here is a run-down of other good blogs (see how I make assumptions?).

Game|Life - OK, I have mentioned this blog, but unless you know Kohler, you don't know what the blog is about. So allow me to bless you with that knowledge, my babies! Kohler writes about video games. He is a Video Game Journalist. Older readers of this blog may be shaking your heads in amazement that such an occupation exists. But exist it does, and Kohler makes a living at it! Then again, I make my living by programming, which is as much fun for me as eating chocolate cookies is for little kids. That aside aside, Kohler's writing is engaging and amusing. Even if video games are not your raison d'etre, you will probably enjoy Kohler's blog if you are even a casual player of games. If you are interested in a more scholarly treatment of video games, try Kohler's "Power Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life" (which I am sure I have mentioned on this blog before). If you miss the good old days of gaming, perhaps Kohler and friends (including Ota and I) can help; to wit: "Retro Gaming Hacks".

Nobunaga Ota - my university roommate, Robert Ota Dieterich's blog. He is currently living in Japan and working for iNiS, a Tokyo-based video game developer. His blog is interesting reading if you a) know Ota, b) are interested in Japan, or c) like video games. Since I am d) all of the above, I read his blog on a daily basis.

Gaweeka - Sean Steele's blog, wherein he forths forth on all manner of topics, from his daily life to adventures with the vast and powerful Steele clan to the 5-3 Washington Redskins. If you know Sean but did not know he had a blog, check it out! And while we are talking about Sean, let's hit his other blogs!

Politics Schmolitics - a group of friends and acquaintances -- a merry band of pranksters indeed -- who have been arguing about politics on-and-off, then really on, then a little off... since 1998. On email. But that meant literally thousands of emails a year. That was too many. So here's the blog dedicated to carrying on that spirit of political and pop culture argument and dialogue. You might think of us as "schmoliticians", because while we take politics seriously, we try not to take ourselves quite so. I am one of the Schmoliticians.

Rude Boy, Rude Girl - a blog devoted to music. A "rude boy", in case you did not know, is a fan of ska music, which Sean, Adam, Harris and I all decidedly are. A "rude girl", then, is a female ska fan, which Carolyn (a fellow RBRG collaborator) is. There is a lot of crappy music in the world, so on RBRG, we try to talk about the good stuff.

Wil Wheaton dot Net in eXile (AKA WWdNiX) - Wil Wheaton played Wesley Crusher on "Star Trek: the Next Generation", and did some movies too, most notably "Stand by Me" and "Toy Soldiers". Aside from being an actor, however, he is also "Just a Geek". He started a blog way back when, called "Where's My Burrito", in honour of a famous quote from "The Simpsons. This blog grew and mutated into Wil Wheaton dot Net, also known as WWdN. About a month and a half ago, during a routine software upgrade, Wil managed to hose his database, so he started a temporary blog over at TypePad so he could continue to blog while he fixed WWdN. The new blog became known as Wil Wheaton dot Net in Exile, or WWdNiX, for short (geeks love acronyms!). Wil has become a great writer, and he is a very interesting fellow. Read his blog. You will thank me later.

And those are the blogs that I read. Enjoy!