I figured I might as right something here as a kind of reintroduction to everyone after I've been extremely inactive for the past year or so.
I joined Gamespot with this account back in 2003, although I believe there was another name I had before that but I didn't remember what it was or something like that. For the first few years I was very much a fixture in System Wars and had some fun times there back in the glory days. It was a fun place and even though there were a few people that would give me headaches, it was all in good fun. Very, very talented posters that engaged in very lively debate...most of the time.
As for my personal situation, I'm quickly approaching the age of 25 and finishing off my Master's Degree in Humanities Computing and Classical Archaeology at the University of Alberta. I'm very proud to call Edmonton my home town and it's a fantastic city. We have a lot of work to do, but we're getting there.
While my academic career has mostly circulated around Greek/Roman archaeology and what not, I've always been interested in games. More on that in a bit. My current research interests are the utilization of GIS systems to analyze sightlines between discovered sites (both major and minor) to see if a kind of regional defense system was in place around the site of Kastro Kallithea, located in Thessaly. By extension, I'm also seeing if one could reasonably predict where possible tower sites, etc, may be based upon topography and visibility from known sites.
The past year or so I've shifted to a degree and done a few research projects on games...specifically the role of narrative in gaming. I have a paper I think is quite good I could email to anyone if they're interested. Unfortunately having to put significant time towards my thesis means I don't have much time for side research.
Other than that, I've been very involved in my choir, the University of Alberta Mixed Chorus and attached Faculty of Education Handbell Ringers. I served as president for the last two years overseeing an executive of 14 people and annual budget of around $80,000. This year I'm just a regular citizen again so I can sit back and relax a bit :)
I'm also very involved with civic politics. I co-founded a ground called Promote Edmonton which worked to encourage working towards making Edmonton a vibrant, modern city. Together with the support of the Edmonton Economic Development Corporation we launched the website www.connect2edmonton.com where I am a primary moderator (and do a damn better job than some of the Nazi moderation here on GS :P ). There we don't get QQing 14 year olds...we get politicians, newspaper columnists, etc, etc, all working under pseudonyms to try and sway the masses.
Gamewise I'm mostly playing WoW at the moment due to time constraints although there are a number of PC games I need to get now that my PC is fixed and back. World in Conflict, BioShock, and a few backlogged games sitting in a stack in my place. I'm a big Nintendo fan, but haven't been overly thrilled by the Wii so far. I'll most likely be picking up a 360 for Mass Effect.
I've entertained ideas of starting a game company with some school friends, but, again, everyone busy so that went on the backburner. More exciting is the planning of a big game conference here in Edmonton set for April 4-5, 2009. That's all very, very early in the planning stages but I'll be sure to put out more info once we get an initial webpresence up and all that jazz.
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