It's My Birthday, But More Importantly...
Yes, it's true. I turned 37 today, and of course I'm celebrating by coming down with the first cold I've had since 2004. But my health issues will not prevent me from realizing my life-long dream (okay, two-years-long dream) of being a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart tomorrow night (Tuesday June 7.) We're taping in the late afternoon, and I gather the first airing will be 11 PM tomorrow, and then it will run on and off through the day Wednesday. It should be a fun -- and hopefully funny -- experience, and I'll definitely post here about it when I get back.
Hey Steve,
Happy B-Day (I hit 35 this past Friday).
Enjoyed the book and am using it to further defend myself against my wife's dislike of there recently being a GameBoy Advanced brought into the home for me and the four-year-old to play with.
Oh, who am I kidding - it's HIS GameBoy now. =)
Best with Mr. Stewart.
Posted by: Gord Fynes | June 06, 2005 at 08:07 AM
Happy birthday Steven!!
Posted by: Alex Ross | June 06, 2005 at 08:07 AM
... It's great you're getting famous and all, but it's a little scary when your name shows up on my Time Warner channel guide. Woah!
Posted by: Alex Ross | June 06, 2005 at 08:14 AM
thats amazing. the daily show? have fun!
happy b-day as well!
Posted by: michael_halvorsen | June 07, 2005 at 02:53 AM
Answer every question with "this is a comedy show" or "this show follows muppets making crank calls, why are you asking me that".
Then tell him to stop, he is hurting the country.
Sound familiar?
Posted by: Cog | June 07, 2005 at 04:46 AM
She said she'll kill me for posting this, but it's probably worth noting, on your birthday, that you've got a fan at our office, too. (n.b. there are no pictures of Ben Trott on the wall.)
Posted by: Anil Dash | June 07, 2005 at 05:44 AM
just popped open my laptop to check my email and do some quick brainstorming for a science textbook i'm editing while watching the daily show and noticed that you're tonight's guest. if marketing research means anything at all it's high time for me to buy a copy of Everything Bad... :-) congrats on making to 37 and the daily show appearance.
Posted by: DRBrown | June 07, 2005 at 11:23 AM
Watching you now...and you look great! Not sick atall. Sound good, too. I gotta get your new book soonest.
Posted by: joe | June 07, 2005 at 11:24 AM
Great interview w/Jon Steven! Couldn't tell that you had a cold at all.
Posted by: Jarrod | June 07, 2005 at 11:25 AM
brilliant. just finished watching you on the daily show. you're a very intelligent guy. i will be going out and buying your book. i agree with a lot of what you said and what was discussed with jon stewart.
i'm glad i found your website and heard you on the daily show.
Posted by: michael_halvorsen | June 07, 2005 at 11:26 AM
Just saw your appearance on the Daily Show, you didn't sound very sick to me. You held your own with Jon very well and it looked like it was fun.
I have to make a point of getting your book very soon.
Posted by: spi | June 07, 2005 at 11:31 AM
steven, just saw your interview with js and am intrigued by what you have to say. i'm going to read the book and am thinking about using it in my course this fall (tv & youth). would love to hear more about what you think about the increasing opportunities for play with media/technologies, esp. for youth...
Posted by: lmv | June 07, 2005 at 11:41 AM
Steven, I waited all night to watch the interview and was frustrated that you didn't have enough time to really get your ideas out there. Though you did counter well, watching the TV, I felt like a student who knew the answers and raised his hand, but was never called. I suppose in this case, a linear narrative is the best way to communicate your ideas.
Posted by: Alex | June 07, 2005 at 11:56 AM
happy b-day...youngster!
Posted by: mike | June 07, 2005 at 12:36 PM
You were great! I made a MPEG2 copy of the interview and put it on my torrent server here:
http://junk.haughey.com/blogtorrent/
Posted by: Matt Haughey | June 08, 2005 at 02:03 AM
Yes! Happy B-Day! Just caught you on the Daily Show and had to jump online to learn more about your book. I'm ordering it asap. Facinating!
A question, though: Are you familiar with James Paul Gee's recent book WHAT VIDEO GAMES HAVE TO TEACH US ABOUT LEARNING AND LITERACY (2003)? It knocked me out--James Paul Gee is amazing. He looks at several sorts of video games articulates the kind of learning that goes on in video games as thirty-something "semiotic domains"--a term he uses to get readers to think of literacy in new ways; a semiotic domain [is] any set of practices that recruits one or more modalities (e.g. oral or written language, images, equations, symbols, sounds, gestures, graphs, artifacts, etc.) to communicate distinct types of meanings (17; 18).
Anyway, his thesis is that video games are rigorous, intellectually-challenging semiotic domains taht require of players what educators should require of students: video games build into their designs and encourage . . . good principles of learning, principles that are better than many of our skill-and-drill, back-to basics, test-them-until-they-drop schools (205).
Thanks for pushing us to take pop culture seriously! I'm about your age (just turned 34), and I agree: TV is better now--richer, more complex. I don't play video games--too hard for me--but I have many brilliant people around me who do. I know they are getting better.
Wonderful interview by the way. John Stewart is my hero!
--Shannon
Posted by: Shannon | June 08, 2005 at 02:14 AM
I'm guessing yes- for his article in Discover, the Resources section lists both:
"Got Game: how the Gamer Generation Is Reshaping Business Forever" John Beck and Mitchell Wade.
Harvard Business School Press, 2004
and
"What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy" James Paul Gee.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2003
Posted by: Alex D | June 08, 2005 at 02:48 AM
Great show, Steven.
I have always wanted to know, what does Jon said to you as soon as the mic goes off?
Posted by: César | June 08, 2005 at 03:10 AM
Assuming I got the main thesis, not having read the book, I've got one general criticism. But first, you exude cool.
The objection: There is no real debate about what the problem with entertainments like video games is. It is not that regular or excessive playing will dull your logical faculties: ability to reason, draw reliable inferences, accurately calculate odds, do risk assessment and so on. It is that this cognitive skill set, no matter how highly developed, is inadequate, on its own, to make life worth living. If these are the only or main thinking skills a young, perhaps immature is a better word, person develops, then that person will be a dysfunctional, though incredibly clever, human being.
The whole bad to good tv show thing is another story altogether. Another time.
Posted by: Susan M. Turner | June 08, 2005 at 03:53 AM
Steven, it was a perfect forum for the book and you did a nice job of balancing the banter with the content. If you've got to work on your birthday, seems like a great way to do it.
Welcome to 37!
Posted by: Sheryl | June 08, 2005 at 12:06 PM
Saw your interview and I can't agree with what I saw more. I might be biased because I would love a reason to hang on to my PS2 outside of "I have lots of free time", but I'm very familiar with the concepts and such that you were talking about. Some magazine I was reading recently (Wired maybe) had an article about how video games and the technological revolution that has happened in the last 30 or so years has altered the very way that people such as myself think. We're problem solvers, visual thinkers, etc. (I turned 19 last month, in case you were wondering)
Nice to meet you... sort of. Happy birthday.
Posted by: Karl | June 08, 2005 at 12:15 PM
Wow, this was weird. My July issue of Discover showed up today and I ended up reading your article a few hours before I saw you on the Daily Show.
Both were quite interesting!
Posted by: Alex D | June 08, 2005 at 12:50 PM
Hi Steven,
I'm confused by what I read about "The Daily Show". I did not see your interview but, I'm happy for you. I copyrighted Karma~Farma in 1997 and have been writing under the name since 1999. Is that the name of your book? Either way, I wish to purchase it.
Best of luck,
Peace & Love,
The Karma~Farma
(Eddie Reynolds)
Posted by: KarmaFarma | June 20, 2005 at 05:33 AM