My head hurts. The cold I caught on my flight back, to start with, passed the mike to a sinusitis that is still in effect. Among numerous other symptoms, sinusitis comes with headaches and neck pain out of the box, both of whom hit it off with my migraine susceptibility like a house on fire. Still can’t do sports, either—going to the g...

After a full week now back where I live, I’m still jet-lagged, which is unusual. Not only is it the first time I have trouble adapting to gaining time, it’s also a mere six-hours difference, not seven or eight. So what gives? I’m beginning to suspect foul play! Maybe it’s got to do with the cold I caught on my flight back, which is als...

Nothing spells “Welcome to Germany!” as forcefully as three (3) scenic breaks on open fields, forty-three (43) minutes of accumulated delay, and one (1) non-functional wifi on a high-speed Intercity-Express train from Frankfurt Airport to Düsseldorf. No wonder Switzerland pulled the plug on Deutsche Bahn trains entering the country! Li...

Ever since I successfully stopped doomscrolling on social media a few weeks ago, news items have reached me instead like bricks hurled through the window. Terrible things had already happened, during recent years, to places I’m biographically, culturally, and emotionally attached to, and now the one most dear to me followed—a United St...

Weekend! Should I write or just relax? Or be torn between those options because I want both and in the end will accomplish neither? Stay tuned. Anyways, as mentioned in my newsletter last week, I’ve more or less successfully unplugged myself from Doom Scrolling to keep my sanity and a get a few things done. Last week, for example, I at...

The reason why I’ve neglected my newsletter for so long is that I have three projects on my plate that consume all the writing capacity I have; the same fate’s befallen my blogs and my social media presences in general. The first project is an academic paper—I published the last one in 2018, which is a long time ago. After that I was c...

For quite some time now, October/November has become the time of the year I’m pissed off the most. Part of it, I admit, is simply the weather—as early as in my pre-teens, I was physically and mentally at the top of my game when the temperature hit 85 (30 °C) and beyond, and the opposite when it fell below 60 (15 °C). That hasn’t change...

Let’s put it this way. The U.S., after all, is my cultural and intellectual home, and I know it well enough to know that there was always a chance that something terrible like this would happen, even if, perhaps, not with such brutal clarity. Thus, I’m not shocked. But I’m devastated. Besides winning the presidency, the Republicans fli...

For me, October means a new academic year; a new generation of students; exam term students frantically looking for suitable BA/MA topics and thesis advisors; new & exciting administrative misunderstandings and disputes; influenza and Covid shots; and (mostly) terrible weather. Plus, again after four years, the presidential election—wh...

Haven’t gotten around to writing anything in the past three weeks as there were just too many things on my plate—grading tons of term projects and level design submissions and end-of-term tests and second attempt BAs; interminable meetings; appointments and planning for a pending kitchen floor renewal; an exhaustive basement clean-up; ...

You won’t find me at gamescom anymore, or at devcom, for that matter. Not going into the weeds here (maybe I’ll elaborate on it in a blog post some day), but I’d already stopped attending gamescom/devcom shortly before Corona hit. Over the years, I’d been wearing six different hats at the fair—guest/gamer, trade visitor/press, exhibito...

Some friends as well as relatives happened to drop by in Germany during the same week last week so I was socially busy, and that was exciting. On the downside, I had to sign yet another hefty rent increase notice, a problem blazingly on fire all over Germany but politically largely unattended. Unattended because all the major political...

You might have heard that the Orange Fascist repeatedly announced there would be a “bloodbath” and a “civil war” if he loses the upcoming presidential election, and that—in 1933 fashion—you wouldn’t have to vote ever again if he wins. Yes, he said that before—but this time, people noticed. And yes, quiet parts are a thing of the past—e...

只今あああ！ It’s always been hard to get my feet back on the ground in Europe when returning from Asia, and that’s particularly true after having spent close to a month in Tōkyō. What’s more, jetlag. Plus, going straight from 90 to 60 ˚F doesn’t help. Also, neither does switching from smoothly buzzing around with subways, regional trains, a...

Two weeks ago, my CanoScan 9000F Mark II’s power-supply unit died. As the device was a mere five years old, I wasn’t exactly amused. I was even less amused when I found out that this scanner model is no longer commercially available; when Canon told me they no longer support or repair it; and when repair shops told me they too can’t re...

Ever since I quit my gym membership during the Corona pandemic, bought myself some shiny equipment, and took up doing workouts at home like in the days of yore, people kept asking me what I’m actually doing. So for my own convenience—because next time, I can just point them to this—here’s my schedule! The basic program is simple: 20 mi...

Skipped a beat last week because I was super busy with a looming deadline for a grant submission on the one hand, and an event at our university that drew over four thousand visitors within six hours on the other. Fun times! I also had a lot of other stuff to do, as usual, and then there was this fantastic weather last Wednesday so I w...

This week’s gonna be brutal. There’s lectures; research project meetings; preparations for my university’s participation in Düsseldorf’s Nacht der Museen where, among other things, our game design students present their work; and the event itself on Saturday 7pm–1am CEST. Then there’s a Fantasy Writers’ Week online workshop Monday thro...

Even though April’s been way too warm so far, it might average out toward the end and thus not be an immediate cause for alarm—at least, that’s what I keep telling myself to enjoy the sun. On the other hand, not enjoying the sun wouldn’t make anything better or worse. Also, there are enough conflicts going on, some of them escalating, ...

During the last month, I’ve freed up a lot of time to intensify my writing projects. Now, lo and behold, Meta is helping me with this! Isn’t that nice! Last year, I wasn’t on Instagram for two or three months while Meta tried to blackmail me into either officially acquiescing to their (in the EU) unlawful use of my data or paying an ou...

After an intense March replete with bachelor and master degree exams, the summer term starts this week with a term project kick-off on Tuesday and my first lecture on Wednesday. And I’m all set, right on time! I did make myself familiar with all the shiny stuff that had arrived over the last weeks for my new training regime, and it’s g...

When I link to books, mine as well as others, the first link I give out is usually the publisher page, and a recommendation to buy at independent bookstores. I link to Amazon for my books too, of course, because I want to be able to pay my rent. But I’d very much prefer if people bought them elsewhere! Why? A few examples. When I self-...

One year ago, along a Kunstpalast exhibition in March 2023, I started going out again (after, as mentioned, three years of pandemic (semi-)lockdowns, burnout, two sports/wear-&-tear-related surgeries, a common cold from hell, and a Corona infection) to exhibitions and art events, theater performances and movies, concerts and operas, yo...

Several factors chipped in to buy me that colorful bouquet of burnout symptoms in late 2022 and my way-too-slow recuperation in 2023: severe overwork; being grounded (in Germany) for years during the pandemic; a common cold from hell and a successive Corona infection; and two lengthy disruptions of my training regime courtesy of arm/sh...

Let’s pretend for a moment there’ll still be history books a hundred years from now, and they look back at the first half of the twenty-first century. From our perspective right here, there’s a rise of authoritarianism, ethno-nationalism, evangelical white supremacy, racism, and straight-up fascism, and we can see how these elements ha...

Yesterday, finally, I uploaded my very last pre-Corona photos to Flickr, mostly Singapore 2019 and Beijing 2016, and I’m looking forward to opening that bottomless pit with new photos I took during December/January in Singapore and Malaysia. What I’m not looking forward to, in contrast, is trying to have my scanner repaired or buying a...

One thing that kept me from enjoying the new year right away was that I’d tested positive for Covid-19 in early January—but only for five days, of which I spent merely two in bed. Lost my sense of smell for two or three days until it slowly came back, which was a weird experience. Anyway, no big deal—five shots between 2021 and 2023 an...

Too many things kept me from regular writing while I was away in Singapore, which also included a fantastic trip to Malaysia from Penang Island via Ipoh and Melaka to KL—where we arrived just in time for the Countdown and New Year celebrations at the Petronas Twin Towers. Everything was awesome, I tell you! Only thing that didn’t work ...

It took me two years, January 2011 to November 2013, to downsize my home library to under 1,000 books—giving away 1,200 (all fine) and throwing away another 300 (damaged books, outdated textbooks, and similar). Since then, I’ve only stocked up on ebooks, and I bought perhaps ten physical books, not counting role-playing stuff, in ten y...

Lots of things have kept me busy—while I was (and still am) occupied with my Ludotronics book release, another comp copy arrived: my book contribution “Shared Realities, Solitary Actions: Media Languages as Agents of Formation, Reinforcement, and Change” in the anthology Narratives Crossing Boundaries: Storytelling in a Transmedia and ...