Fade to Play

Art is my life
It’s my air, my food
I’m not happy, or sane, or fulfilled, if I’m not creating
It’s everything
~Indigo

Last night I attended Indigo’s first solo show at the Verve Hair Lounge. It was a fun occasion and gave me an opportunity to witness her creativity and talent with oil on canvas firsthand.

Amber George (Verve owner) and Indigo – “weighted, I remain”

“She’s gone away”

A quiet moment before her show – “seven years later”

Food by Nuba Restaurant

Megan Mutch of Cerelia Winery

Beats by DJ Kilocee

I wish Indigo success with her future shows.

Sailor Jupiter, Sailor Mercury, & Sailor Mars

This year I attended Anime Evolution 2010 which was held August 13-15 at the University of British Columbia.

Anime Evolution is Vancouver’s premier event celebrating Japanese animation, manga, gaming, and every kind of related fandom. Our featured activities include interactive panel discussions with industry guests, cultural demonstrations, 24-hour video rooms, cosplay contests, an AMV contest, a charity auction, evening dances, and creative workshops. We also offer LAN, tabletop, LARP, and console gaming rooms.

Tuxedo Mask & Princess Serenity

It was a phenomenal learning experience at an event that has grown to over 6000 registered attendees from its early days at Simon Fraser University in 1998.

Sailor Jupiter & Sailor Mars

During AE 2010, I discovered J-pop (Japanese Pop), met members of Loading Ready Run, watched Anime Idol, and observed someone excel at Robot Unicorn Attack (still got the song in my head).

Princess Serenity

In addition, I made new friends and have become more integrated into the local anime and manga community.

Sailor Chaos & Sailor Iron Mouse

My experiences are shared in a series of photo essays beginning with the Sailor Moon photoshoot.

On Saturday I attended the annual Vancouver Zombie Walk. Many people were very creative with their look and had the walk or pose to match. I used the opportunity to take a few photos of the event which I posted to flickr.

You’re next

School is not in session

She won’t protect you

Thriller on repeat

Even Zombies get married

Zombie jr and mom

What do we want? Braaaainnsss

Ooh! Text message

See you next year!

This summer I began my term as the founding editor for the Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program journal. It will be open-access and student-run and we anticipate a Spring 2011 launch.

We are in the early stages and are networking and seeking advice from the open access journal community at UBC and around the world in order to develop a solid foundation for our peer-reviewed journal.

To that end, I have submitted a solo proposal to present at SXSW 2011 entitled How to create an open access journal. It would be very cool if you would vote for me. I attended SXSW 2008 for the first time as an attendee and I am excited to return as a presenter.

It is a 2-stage process: First you need to sign up, then you need to vote.

See you at SXSW 2011!

Memories from SXSW 2008 courtesy of Kris Krug

On August 7th and 8th I returned to Art in the Garden at the UBC Botanical Garden to listen to music, interact with passionate artists, and learn about their creative techniques.

Art in the Garden is organised collaboratively by Janet Lee of Janet Planet Designs, Friends of the UBC Botanical Garden (including Gudrun Hancock), and the UBC Botanical Garden. This is the second year at the UBC Botanical Garden as Art in the Garden was annually held in Janet Lee’s private garden from 1999-2008.

Cory Lee of CoCoBo Designs and Janet Lee display CoCoBo fashion accessories

Crystal Deshaies showing off her Home & Garden Portrait

Ken McRae with Tulip, one of his fine art photography prints

Douglas Walker of Waterworks Garden Sculpture

Greg Michalski and Kim Urhahn of Ka Huila sing acoustic blues

Nathan Scott of Living Stone Studio poses with the gardener

I look forward to returning next year.

update: I want to thank Ka Huila for their complementary CD.

Remember how your friends would wander through the library looking for you and wondering why you aren’t answering your phone?

Well, the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre (IKB) here at UBC has solved this problem building on a cool idea from the Claire T Carney Library at U Mass Darthmouth.

This tool allows people to mark their location in IKB with an avatar (circled) and then easily share that URL with friends.

I like how innovate my university is. Has anyone used this type of application before?

Breakfast at the UBC Blueberry Fest

The 2nd Annual UBC Blueberry Fest (July 13-16th) was created to promote local food to the UBC community and Vancouver residents. Over four sunny days, live music played as people experienced blueberries in a variety of forms – e.g. blueberry pancakes, blueberry cream blintzes, and blueberry creme brulee – building on the success of last year’s inaugural event, which I also attended.

The BC Blueberry Fest was organised by UBC Food Services and sponsored by the BC Blueberries Council, UBC Bookstore, and ethical bean coffee.

The full set of photos are available on flickr.

How blueberry pancakes are made

According to the BC Blueberry Council, eating 125ml (1/2 cup) of Blueberries is enough to meet the recommended 7-10 servings according to the Canadian Food Guide.

Some additional facts about BC Blueberries

• Blueberries are one of three fruits native to North America and have been around approximately 13,000 years (Concord grapes and cranberries are the others)




• 650 farm families are harvesting close to 80 million pounds of blueberries this year




• British Columbia is the largest producer of highbush blueberries in Canada and the second top producing region in the world and still growing.

Would you like some blueberry cream blintzes?

Local produce from UBC Farm

Loving some blueberry pancakes

Music by FiddleStix

We’re The Celtic Scholars

Jose Aliangan, 2009 UBC Blueberry Fest

From July 13th until the 16th, the 2nd Annual UBC Blueberry Fest takes place. It is a great opportunity to experience tasty BC blueberries in a variety of forms such as pancakes, muffins, and scones at reasonable prices.

• Location: UBC Bookstore Plaza – University boulevard and East Mall
• Dates: July 13-16, 9am-1pm
• Menu: BC Blueberry Scones and Muffins, Breakfast Parfait, Blueberry Creme Brulee, UBC Farm Salad, Blueberry Polantta Cake, Blueberry Cream Blintzes and more

The UBC Farm will be there on Wednesday.

Local talent featured – FiddleStix, Don & Abby, and the James Rogers Band

For further info: See UBC Food Services or email Juliana Campbell

Blueberries are reported to have nutritional value and I’m hoping to bake some Blueberry muffins once I acquire some skills. This Truly Simple recipe looks enticing.

flickr photo by FortGirl

See you there!

Last night I discovered a link to an ARG called We lost our gold.

According to the website, there is $10 000 in gold hidden somewhere in NYC. Clues are provided by puppets via YouTube and need to be deciphered in order to locate the gold. If you find it, it’s yours.

I wish I lived in New York City so that I could participate. There is already discussion on an ARG forum.

Any plans to play?

On Friday March 7th, I presented a talk at Northern Voice, a social media and blogging conference entitled: Why I play Alternate Reality Games (and why you should too)!.

I was nervous as I hadn’t spoken in a public forum in a little while, but I was happy to talk about my experiences playing The Lost Ring in 2008 and Urgent Evoke in 2010. I enjoyed responding to the questions that were asked and it was cool to meet a fellow Evoke player – Rachel Smith (@ninmah) from NMC. She made this sketch using Autodesk SketchBook Pro.

Sketch by @ninmah

It was also super cool that the Bryan Alexander (@bryanalexander) did a shout out for my talk during his keynote. Unfortunately I was in a meeting with my supervisor Friday morning so I missed it.

I hope to be back next year talking about games. Here are my slides and thanks to everyone that attended.