Welcome to Aaron Delwiche

Flush with the recent influx of capital from an unnamed philanthropist-cum-power-leveling-service, we've gone on a massive buying spree for new talent. We're hoping that they'll boost our rankings in time for the eventual sale of the franchise and the announcement of a new stadium built in Second Life using the tax dollars of North Freeport residents.

Aaron Delwiche, Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Trinity University is the first of our new draft picks, and we're tickled to have him. He is the head of the New Media Studies minor at Trinity, and focuses on youth culture, gaming, and global civil society. Anyone who knows anything in this space will recognize him as the teacher behind the wonderful class on qualitative research methods to explore virtual worlds, which we have featured before. (Last year's class concentrated on World of Warcraft, this year's class is using Everquest II as a starting point). Apart from the article referenced off to the side, he also writes a bi-monthly gaming column for the San Antonio Current with material like this.

Now we know that you are all concerned about recent problems with sports players and unacceptable behavior. Aaron passed the drug test (the test did find trace amounts of [Rumsey Rum], but the doctor didn't know what that was) however we're committed to full background checks as a result of that unfortunate incident with Julian Dibbell and the...well, never mind.

So, we've had a private detective on Aaron's case for the last 6 months and here is what she dug up:

• The children of communist sympathizers are sometimes referred to as red diaper babies. As the offspring of parents who were highly crunchy in the 1960s and 1970s, Aaron could be described as a paisley diaper baby. His childhood was one long pilgrimage between outposts on the hippy trail: San Jose, Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Mendocino County, San Francisco and Eugene.
• For a brief period in the 1970s, he lived on a commune in Point Arena less than 25 miles away from the Rainbow commune where Winona Ryder grew up. Sadly, they never met. However, since she was a toddler and Aaron was almost five years old, the deck would have been stacked against the relationship from the start. But you never know.
• In seventh grade, Aaron and his friends used to hang out in a Sunnyvale-based computer store that sold Apple computers. The store (Computer Plus) was owned by Mark Wozniak. The younger brother of one of the inventors of Apple Computer, Mark struck a deal with the junior high school students. He would let them play games and experiment with computer programming as much as they wanted, as long as they would melt into the background when *real* customers walked through the door. At times, when there weren't enough sales people on the floor, the kids would field questions about the new machines. To the best of our detective's knowledge Aaron was not influential in Steve Jobs's clothing choices, either back then or more recently.

We also asked Aaron to take our standard psychological test, which is to say the Dungeons and Dragons Multiphasic. Aaron came back as a Chaotic Good Elf Mage. We're prepared to overlook this.

Welcome Aaron. We're delighted to have you. (Oh, and you can send me Winona's number either by email or IM. Do you recall if she likes flowers or chocolates?)

Comments

[Michael Chui]

1.

Aaron came back as a Chaotic Good Elf Mage.

I always come back Chaotic Good, but I can never remember my race/profession. In retrospect, I suspect this has to do with the fact that I'm ideologically stubborn, but racially and occupationally apathetic. =P Except the whole undergrad thing.

Welcome, Aaron. Good to have you.

[JiK]

2.

You're in the midst of nowhere a droplet in a mist, you musta typed in something weird this URL, it don't exist.

the
http://neppyman.irulethe.net/dndwho/index.html
link has an extra set of endquotes.

[Dmitri Williams]

3.

Welcome! So glad you passed the Total Information Awareness Program screening!

[Dan Hunter]

4.

Thanks JiK. Fixed the broken link.

[Thomas Malaby]

5.

Welcome, Aaron!
/waves (laundered) paisley diaper over head in celebration!