In the lobby of the hotel beside the convention center
You stand and seethe, smoke curling from your ears,
White-knuckle grip on the credit card in hand
Which has just been so politely declined.
There are thoughts you think at these moments,
Crazy trainwrecks of credit card fraud, of hacked systems,
Of banks that had collapsed without warning,
Of fat cats in billion-dollar suits blowing your savings
On trillion-dollar toilets and vacations on Mars.
You think to yourself what could have happened,
The money was there last week, yesterday, this morning,
You’ve been traveling frugally, but did something happen?
Was there a bill you’d paid but forgotten about?
Did you buy a car when you weren’t looking?
This is America, this is fear,
This is terror not of Jihad but of grocery bills,
Of unexpected children, of opportunities missed
Due to the chains clapped round your ankles by student loans,
The bill for the American Dream coming due
And despite all your work and glory and degrees
You’re still found so, so wanting.
In the end, the truth comes out –
A freeze slapped on your card not for lack of funds
But for lack of locality, a skepticism of travel,
A suspicion of fraud that you find all too understandable,
Cleared up with the help of an operator and a few clicks of a mouse.
If only all of our fears could be assuaged so easily.
Storyteller, scholar, consultant. Loving son, husband and father. Kindhearted mischief-maker.
I'm the Director of the Games and Simulation program at Miami University in Ohio, where I am also an Assistant Professor in the College of Creative Arts' Emerging Technology in Business and Design department. I'm also the director of Miami's Worldbuilding and Narrative Design Research Laboratory (WNDRLab). I have a Master's in Comparative Media Studies from MIT and a PhD in Media Arts and Practices from the University of Southern California.
In past lives I've been the lead Narrative Producer for Microsoft Studios and cofounder of its Narrative Design team, working on projects like Hololens, Quantum Break and new IP incubation; in a "future of media" think tank for Microsoft's CXO/CTO and its Chief Software Architect; the Creative Director for the University of Southern California's World Building Media Lab and the Technical Director, Creative Director and a Research Fellow for USC's Annenberg Innovation Lab; a Visiting Assistant Professor at Whittier College and director of its Whittier Other Worlds Laboratory (WOWLab); the Communications Director and a researcher for the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab; a founding member of the Convergence Culture Consortium at MIT (now The Futures of Entertainment); a magazine editor; and a award-winning short film producer. more »
The opinions put forward in this blog are mine alone, and do not reflect the opinions of my employers.
