Another Transgender Pioneer

Have you ever heard of "Dani Bunten"?

From the "Kotaku" Gaming site comes this salute to "Dani" who was born Daniel and was a pioneer in the gaming world.
"There are plenty of legends in the world of video games whose names will fly off the tongues of casual fans. Nolan Bushnell. Trip Hawkins. Shigeru Miyamoto. Will Wright. Sid Meier.

It's a shame, then, that so few can name another of the all-time greats, Danielle Bunten Berry.
Or, as she was known before 1992, Dan Bunten.
The designer born as Daniel Paul Bunten in 1949 is important to video games for any number of reasons, some trivial, some vital to the progression of the entire medium.
Her first game (yes, her first game, we'll get to that), 1978's Wheeler Dealers, was the first ever PC game to be sold in a printed box instead of a sleeve or plastic bag, a necessity born of the game's inclusion of a custom controller."
Sadly, she passed away in 1998 from lung cancer. For more on the story, follow the link above.

Walking Into A Room With Yourself.

The other evening I happened upon a group of four couples I knew years ago as my male self. One of the guys I actually graduated with a hundred years ago and was a friend.
There aren't many of us around here as the town I'm from is one of the stereotypical "rust belt" towns sold out to foreign industry over the years.  Many of my acquaintances went to greener pastures and left or under greener pastures and died. So it was strange to see so many of them in one place and so close to me.
It didn't really matter as none of them even gave me a second glance. On the other hand, I was sitting at an angle where I could watch all of them.
How strange it was to be looking in on my old life.
The first thing that struck me was how the group was separated into the four men and four women at two adjoining tables and they never looked at each other.
Well knowing them as well as I did, I could see that coming 20 years ago.
Of course I had no problems imagining what the men were talking about but of course I did wonder what the women were saying.
After a few minutes, I tired of the game and reentered my own little world and marveled at how they saw nothing of the old me!
Didn't stay long that night. Got up and closed yet another door of my old life and smiled to myself!

Book Review

I finished reading "Two Spirit Ranch" by Jaime Stryker yesterday.
If you are not familiar, it's a real live transgendered romance novel aimed at a main stream audience and you can read more about it in my previous post here
Here is my disclaimer about NOT being a professional book reviewer. You will not read about me in the New York Times.
But! I thought the book was a well done nice good read. Why?
Jaime painted a very effective picture of the pains and successes of living a transgendered life.
The book took me just enough into the life of a transsexual woman to know and empathize with her but not get mired in too much detail. Plus the book has just a touch of sensuality to give it some spice!
Of course I won't go into much more than that and ruin the book for you if you decide to purchase it.
I will say, I can't wait to see how "Terri" does in the sequel!