This wasn’t quite what they had in mind.
Towering overhead, brushing skyscrapers aside like nuisances,
Shrieks a hundred-odd storeys of doom, destruction and chaos,
Shooting sparks the size of buses from its gaping plastic maw,
Eyes flashing with bulbs like tiny suns,
The clockwork gears inside its mammoth chest
Grinding and screeching so deafeningly loud
The noise shatters any windows its clacking claws leave intact.
The otaku should be overjoyed, the geeks should be dancing in the streets,
Voltron has come to New York, Ultraman has come to Los Angeles,
The giant robots have finally emerged from the sugary imaginations
Of a billion young couch jockeys and arcade dwellers,
On the scene, large and in charge,
Autobot Decepticon Battletech Mighty Morphin Power Whatever
Ain’t so pretty when it’s your Grandma’s apartment going flying.
Call in the military, can we get Godzilla,
G.I. Joe, He-Man, the Inhumanoids, Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers,
If these guys are here then it’s all up for grabs,
Hell, get Jeff Goldblum with a PowerBook 1400c and a 14.4 modem,
He’ll get these alien motherfuckers fixed right up,
Just you wait and see. By sunset this’ll all be good as new.
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.
