National Gaming Day @ Your Library

I was not aware that there was a National Gaming Day @ Your Library until I saw some pictures from this site's Flickr feed at the top of the page that were posted by Cape May County Library. Apparently kids all over the country, from Kotzebue, AK to St. Thomas, VI, go to their public and school libraries and play video games, board games and even card games like Magic: The Gathering. The libraries even get to compete with one another in Rock Band, The Beatles: Rock Band and Super Smash Bros. Brawl competitions.

Special note: The closest library to me was in Goshen, VA. No Harrisonburg, Charlottesville or Staunton.

The goal of the program is to raise awareness about the uses of games in libraries and expose people to games they haven't played before. It looks like libraries are taken akin to these activities and including them with traditional media.

The website, ILoveLibraries.Org, details everything about it. To get your library involved, go to http://ngd.ala.org/.

Gamer Vacations (aka Someone Reads this Website)

Woohoo! Our first submission email!

I got an email from, of all things, airlinecreditcards.com that keeps a blog about travel destinations. Jessica Hupp posted up about the top 25 Gamer Vacation Destinations.

Some of the destinations don't make much sense (Beach rental?), so I'm not sure if 25 was just a magic number (though I probably would take a DS to the beach, so okay, you got me). But there are some real winners in here.

Penny Arcade Expo is definetly on my list of things to do. Especially since we have friends and family on the west coast to stay with. E3 would be nice, but I'm afraid my blogger cred will never get me into such an exclusive (especially since the recent format change) event.

So if you're planning this summer's vacation with the family and want to sneak in some gaming, suggest some of these but don't mention the fact that there is gaming there. That's a true Part Time Gamer tactic for ya. Always intend to get your game on, even in the most unlikely spots.