It’s official. After four years of plodding along with my Dell laptop, I have finally been converted. More specifically, I have finished shelled out the cash to be converted. More more specifically, I just bought a MacBook. I just picked it up today, and it’s so shiny. I mean, really shiny. I haven’t even had the chance to boot it up yet, I’ve been so busy staring at the pretty packaging. You can tell I’m off to a great start.

I’m thrilled just to enter a computer-y world where I don’t have to borrow someone else’s computer to run Photoshop and Second Life and, well, just about anything. True, it seems like everyone is switching over to Apple these days. But if going with the crowd means I get shiny things, so be it!

GDC 2007 is now more than four months past, and I still have a note to myself to finish my event coverage. Yeah right. I had plans to talk about all the people I met, how it seemed like conferences were sprouting out of GDC left and right, how the word “innovation” got thrown around so much it made me wonder if the games industry wasn’t in a state of creative crisis (indicated by an excessive, almost crippling self-awareness and self-identification) instead of a state of rebirth. Blah blah blah.

Now, as I sit in the heat of mid-July vaguely pondering the hectic days of a GDC gone by, I’m thinking the most important thing the event taught me was that blogging on-site might be hectic, but if you don’t write it now (as in then), you ain’t never gonna write it. For me at least, the days after big conferences–which I think I’m going to use writing–are actually the days I use just sleeping off the bustle. You mean, when I wake up this morning, I don’t have to run to an 8:00 session, then an 8:30, then cover a 9:00? It’s that sweet, lulling calm that sucks all the blogging power out of my bones. Hopefully I’ve learned my lesson.

Birdo has always struck me as, well, a weird character. I know her best through the Mario Kart series, and I’ve got to admit, there’s something about her gaping pink maw that makes me pick the female mushroom every time. It was only recently I heard about her interesting gender history. The way I was told it, in the Japanese release of the Mario games, Birdo was described almost as a transvestite. Okie-doke. I hadn’t thought much about it; I guess her make-up is pretty camp.

But it appears the story is more complicated than that. Seems certain LGBT-friendly gamers have been claiming Birdo as something of a transgender hero–the first real trans character in video games–since she went from gender swapping to just plain being (the newest Mario material refers to her as “she”). Others claim that the ambiguity only comes up in American copy; in Japan, she’s always been female. Clearly the time is ripe for nit-picking fanboys to jump in with super specific info. Until then, I’m just fascinated/horrified by that mouth…

Update: Heroine Sheik reader Andy Grass was kind enough to send in the above shot from the Mario 2 instruction booklet, which explains “he (i.e. Birdo) thinks he is a girl and he spits eggs from his mouth.” Of course, that’s only the American take, and then specifically the Mario 2 take. Still, there’s something undeniably put-on about spitting eggs from a giant hole of an orifice. I mean, come on, even “real” women don’t get that literal.

There’s been talk around the Terra Nova water cooler about this tidbit of an article published by New Scientist last week, “Gender-bending Avatars Inspire Less Trust.” Drawing on a recent study, the article talks about how androgynous avatars in worlds like Second Life appear less trustworthy to other users than clearly gendered avatars. The study tested people’s responses to many different avatars, ranging from a woman in pink with blond pigtails to an anthropomorphized ketchup bottle–all of whom were actually just being mouthed by other users. In the overall, it seems the rule held: the more androgynous, the more “untrustworthy.”

Both the article and the study conclude that the reason for this relationship is relatively simple: androgynous avatars seem less human. Also, we understand each other through gender expectations. In the absence of gender, we don’t know what to expect. It’s not an uncommon trope, historically, for the transvestite character in literature and art to be seen as the trickster. Still, what the study really makes me wonder is, does this relationship hold true for real life? Are we more comfortable, on a visceral level, with people who fit neatly into a gender distinction? And do we distrust gender-ambiguous people? Does it matter if we ourselves are clearly gendered or gender ambiguous?

Well, technically they love the fancy electronic equipment owned by big games company area/code. More specifically, they love it when this equipment is stolen by a customer/janitor and given to them as presents. Well, at least these two transvestite prostitutes seemed to like all that a lot. What the heck am I talking about? The story is too ridiculous to be made up, so you’re going to have to trust me (and my area/code informant) on this one.

Apparently, last weekend, a janitor brought two transvestite prostitutes to area/code’s office near Union Square, where he proceeded to… Well, you know. Then he stole a goody bag of items–including cell phones, a camera, and a laptop–some of which he promptly gave to his new friends as gifts. Then he took off (wait, here’s the best part) leaving one of the prostitutes passed out on area/code’s sofa. Which meant that, when employee Dennis Crowley came in the next morning, he found her still asleep on the couch.

Of course, the police were called in big time. And in the janitor’s defense, he actually cleaned the office before using it for sex with prostitutes and then stealing. Still, by the looks of that sofa, after this, some things ain’t never gonna be clean…

My apologies, I know it’s been pretty slim pickings here at Heroine Sheik for the past week or two. That’s because, after-school special style, I’ve been going through some changes lately–some of them personal (like I moved to New York City, twice), and some of them just awesome. What I mean to say is, as of next Monday, I’ll be leaving my current 9-to-5 and starting with The Village Voice full-time. That means a whole lot more hands-on involvement with the Voice website, plus the chance to write a whole lot more content. Actual office, here I come! I don’t know about you, but I’m damn excited.