Friday’s All Right for Getting to the Other Side

A few weeks ago, I read a comic strip about the classic “Why did the chicken cross the road?” joke that mentioned that the joke had a double meaning that had gotten lost over the years. The claim is that in addition to being a nonsense joke, it was kind of a double-entendre about “going to the other side” as in going to the afterlife. It was convincing enough that I started to wonder if everybody got both meanings, and I was the only one who’d gone since childhood assuming that it was funny only because it was a non-joke.

(Asking around to some friends and former co-workers online, I learned that none of them had heard of the double meaning, that it seemed an unlikely “retcon,” and as Dave Grossman pointed out: if one of the first appearances of it in print was as far back as 1847, that was before roads had a reputation for being dangerous or getting run over. So it’s very unlikely part of the secret double meaning. But I already spent minutes making the image for this post, dammit).

Pre-orders for the Playdate started on Thursday. They went through the initial batch pretty quickly, but orders made now will deliver next year. It’s good to see so much interest around it, since those guys have been working super-hard on this thing forever. (While backing up stuff the other night, I saw a bunch of early art assets for my game, and I was stunned to realize how long I’ve been working on the thing!)

As part of opening pre-orders for the Playdate, Panic released a new episode of the Panic podcast, interviewing a lot of people involved with the project, from initial concept to software development.

For the record: I’m 100% Team ScarJo. (Actually, I didn’t care all that much until I read Disney’s public statement about the suit, which was hell of gross).

Speaking of gross: Activision/Blizzard has been sued by the state of California for a long history of sexual harassment and discrimination. What’s been remarkable to me is how awful Blizzard’s response was — and yet 100% in line with what you’d expect from rich white men in Orange County, CA. NPR, as usual, both-sides it into an innocuous non-response, but the full text is just dripping with indignation and passive-aggressive blaming California liberals. Instead of making even a token attempt to address the allegations. I’m impressed that so many employees were outraged by the response, enough to make a statement and schedule a walk-out for earlier this week. Meanwhile, Activision Blizzard keeps digging their hole deeper and deeper. It would be very satisfyingly ironic if the arrogance of Activision Blizzard’s exec staff is what finally spurs a “Me Too” moment in video game development.