Monday, March 5, 2007

Musing Ian's Day

Happy Birthday Ian! In my 28 years, I've had the joy of attending many of Ian's birthday parties, and being influenced by his adventurous character and true sensibilities. This break dancer nicknamed Kool Rock Ski conversed many a night with me about literature, honeys, religion, and cinema while we roomed together at BYU.

In trying to remember Ian's birthday parties when we were tikes, I vaguely remember being really happy if he got a new nintendo game like Kid Icarus, or Denver Broncos stuff. I'm glad we've been friends since our youth, and not just because I got to play different video games, and play with his dad's star trek figures (just a little Uncle Scott...we'd just move the arms).

Hope you have a great day with your women, Kool Rock. Happy birthday to your blog, too:)

4 comments:

Ian said...

Wow, what an honor to have a post dedicated to my birthday on this illustrious blog. We have had lots of good times, and I am sure there are more to come.

What kind of things do you think we learned from Kid Icarus? At the least, we learned a little bit about Greek mythology. Actually, that's probably a pretty good model for a learning video game. Take a hero from an important time in history (or literature or mythology), make him or her the hero in an adventure game, and fill the game with teachings about history, mythology, geography, literature, art, math, etc.

Katie said...

What a nice birthday tribute Cblakes. That's so nice of you. I love that picture of Ian and cute Mary. Ian often reflects on the "good old" days with you in University Villa. You're a good cousin and friend.

3703 said...

Don't get too comfortable ian, Mr. Rumble has already petitioned to be used for dedicatory postage. So far he has been snubbed twice. Enjoy your moment.

But I will add to your already glorious tribute. I always dreamed of being part of the Cousin house, I read letters of pillow-talk, dating, dance videos, Book slash art clubs, etc etc, but the fun ended the spring I came back. Ian and Spencer fled northward, like Bill and Ted, to marry their queens. Cblakes remained, only to Marry one himself. Cousin Chris moved into Belmont, need I say more. And Miguel went to portland. I don't know why I bring this up, maybe I'm just sad.

cblakes said...

Interesting! I agree that Kid Icarus is an introduction into the Greek mythology world that could give a learner a framework to draw upon for learning more about Greek Mythology. I totally agree that by making a hero (or a villian? does this depend on points of view?) from history a character in a video game, the player will be more interested because he or she has (virtually) lived in that world.

Also, I've been learning that video games, in order to sell, must fundamentally facilitate learning processes (like transfer, experimentation, innovation...). So we work out our thinking muscles when playing games.

In Kid Icarus I remember finding money, and frequenting a shop where I could buy goods. For a 7 year old playing this game, suddenly financial prioritizing and planning must happen for survival, or at least effective progression. So we learned basics of money management in a context of needing goods, and we excercised problem solving skills. And maybe even transfer skills, in that we could have managed our allowances differently or used it for different purposes.

I'm thinking lately that parents understanding what kids do in games create many windows of opportunities to teach. So there's my stab at what we may have learned from Kid Icarus.

Rumbler - I can't lie - We had a lot of fun. Your absence was always felt, though.