I promise I’ll eventually post some real content, rather than just a listing of what I’ve been up to, but it’s been a bit of a whirlwind for the past month or two.

The semester wrapped up smoothly enough, and since then I’ve been hammering away on the revisions to my manuscript (which is officially, excitingly under contract), wrapping up a couple of articles I owed to anthologies I’d agreed to contribute to, and juggling a few other odds and ends. I interrupted that briefly for a vacation over the past week, which included a stop at the “Great Canadian Midway” in Niagara Falls. It’s a delightful arcade, and had a number of ticket redemption machines I’d never seen before alongside some I remembered from my childhood. If I’d been thinking, I would have taken pictures to share, but as it was, I just fed too much money to the coin pushers. In any case, I recommend a visit if you’re ever in the area.

The Great Canadian Midway is actually pretty great. (Image from http://www.cliftonhill.com/attractions/great-canadian-midway)

On a less “how I spent my summer vacation” note, I’ve recently been interviewed for a couple pieces of reportage on game violence. Erik Kain interviewed me for a Mother Jones article on “The Truth About Video Games and Gun Violence.” Kain did a great job on the piece, which provides an overview of some of the research about violent games completed over the past three decades. Then, last night, I was interviewed by Gil Gross for a segment titled, “Playing Video Games vs Acts of Violence.” If you’re interested, you can listen to that online here; it’s about 10 minutes of audio.

I am always excited for opportunities to contribute to public discussion about digital culture and video games, and these pieces are no exception. If the topic interests you, do check them out.