Since my birthday is December 24th, I usually end up with a slightly larger-than-normal pile of presents by the end of December. This year my family and friends got me some very thoughtful gifts, in more than one sense – many of these gifts represent some bit of where my brain is at nowadays. Yes, this is a “gift brag” post, but I’m trying to tie it together with other thoughts I’ve had lately.
Books and Publishing: The biggest thing I got was the Samsung Galaxy Tab, the latest Android-based tablet computer (along with a leather case that opens like a book). After a couple of days testing out various apps and accidentally deleting my entire collection of RPGs on PDF, I have a nice collection that allows me to read my original ebooks, gaming PDFs, the books I’ve purchased on Kindle and nook, and even comics. I’ll have to write a more elaborate review at some point when I’ve had some time using it, but it’s nice to have all of my media in one portable place. I also got an Amazon gift card for $25, so I can load up on some ebooks.
On the other hand, I’ve always felt that physical books won’t be completely replaced by ebooks – there will always be books that you want the tangible experience of reading, or are just unlikely to become digital anytime soon. So I’ll also be just as happy to spend my $30 gift certificate to the Book Nook and flesh out my collection of physical books (probably filling in some gaps in my collection of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler novels).
Game Design: On the digital gaming side, I was gifted with a copy of Half-Life 2 on Steam. I’m excited because not only have I not played this, but it’s one of the more heavily modded games out there, and I’m curious to dig into that community more after my recent experience with Vampire: the Masquerade – Bloodlines. I also got an iPod Touch as the CCP company gift, as well as a $15 iTunes card and a nice set of Jaybird earbuds, so I’ll have a chance to dig back into the latest state of Apple Store gaming (which I haven’t seen much of since I switched to my Evo six months back), as well as being able to compare the emerging transmedia opportunities on both the iOS and Android platforms.
On the physical gaming side, the trend of modding continues, as I got three of the recent Lego board games: Lava Dragon, Minotaurus, and Ramses Pyramid. On the one hand, it was fun to be able to put the boards together, but it goes deeper than that. The games actively encourage you to modify their boards, pieces, and rules, and not only give you some example optional rules, but has a website in which people can share their favorite rules hacks. Sites like boardgamegeek.com have more experienced games on it, so the Variant boards for some of the games have interesting ideas lurking around.
And The Rest: I got my obligatory Transformers gift this year – Power Core Combiner Bombshock. I also got a ticket to see a Cirque de Soleil show this week in Atlanta, a folding knife,1 and a couple of Hexbugs in my stocking. Nothing really insightful there, aside from it being a collection of cool things.
What insightful gifts did you get this holiday?
- You’d be surprised how many people have knives at CCP, or how useful they end up being. ↩
I have to thank you for mentioning and linking to the Book Nook. It unlocked a flood of pleasant memories.
I was a regular there for the two years I lived in Atlanta, and it remains one of the very few things that I sincerely miss about the area.
Happy belated birthday as well!
No problem, man. I’ve only been there a few times, but I have always found some awesome treasure lurking in its stacks every time. I am really looking forward to a trip out to spend this money.
Thank you for the birthday wishes, and I hope you and yours had a great Christmas (although your own gift blog post seems to indicate that it was a lot of fun)!
Well, for the one, I got a copy of Inception. B-) Watched it last night with my family. My parents hadn’t seen it before. That was fun. A few nonfiction books, personal growth and whatnot. Those’ll be good.
I also suggested to my parents that they get my little brother Carcassonne, and it has proved to be a smashing success so far.
Ha, I bought Half-Life 2 recently…that was when the Orange Box went on sale earlier. I need to play farther through it, so far I’ve only just barely gotten the iconic orange suit. But I realize that I love how Valve incorporates storytelling into their gameplay. Loved it with Portal, and HL2 is doing the same thing. No cutscenes here. It’s all integrated and very immersive.
Actually, though this doesn’t qualify as presents, I did rake in a lot of Steam sales. But that’s a tangent.
Yeah, Steam has taken a lot of my money recently…