Full of the gentle humour and storytelling that he brings to “Music and Company” every morning, The Gift of the Game is Tom Allen’s exploration of the ways in which hockey can shape the relationship between fathers and sons. In the winter of 2001 Tom Allen stepped onto a frozen lake with his eight-year-old son. They laced up their skates, set out chunks of firewood as goal posts, and played one-on-one hockey under an enormous blue sky. This would mark a new turn in Allen’s relationship with Wesley, even as other relationships began to fall apart. When Allen and his wife go their separate ways, it is hockey that forms the enduring bond between father and son. As Wesley grows in confidence and purpose, Allen grows into the mythic role of hockey dad and assistant coach, and spends his empty afternoons working on his own game on outdoor rinks, if only to avoid the silence of his apartment. But what is this game to which he has entrusted his fragile sense of well-being and his son’s emerging sense of self? With keen intelligence and self-deprecating emotional honesty, Allen sets about answering the questions that shape his new life: How does hockey mould us? To what degree are we defined by our love of the game and our wish to be admired for our skill on the ice? What are the implications for our culture of a game that so privileges violence? In making of hockey the arena of his pride and love and self-respect, Allen is forced to figure out what the game itself means.

A poem about the visit that Santa Claus pays to the children of the world during the night before every Christmas.

In the midst of Occupy, Barbara Andersen begins spamming people indiscriminately with ukulele covers of sentimental songs. A series of inappropriate intimacies ensued, including an erotically charged correspondence and then collaboration with an extraordinarily gifted and troubled musician living in Germany.

"The Gift of the Magi" is a short story by O. Henry first published in 1905. The story tells of a young husband and wife and how they deal with the challenge of buying secret Christmas gifts for each other with very little money. As a sentimental story with a moral lesson about gift-giving, it has been popular for adaptation, especially for presentation at Christmas time.

"Game Feel" exposes "feel" as a hidden language in game design that no one has fully articulated yet. The language could be compared to the building blocks of music (time signatures, chord progressions, verse) - no matter the instruments, style or time period - these building blocks come into play. Feel and sensation are similar building blocks whe

The Gift Is in the Making retells previously published Anishinaabeg stories, bringing to life Anishinaabeg values and teachings for a new generation. Readers are immersed in a world where all genders are respected, the tiniest being has influence in the world, and unconditional love binds families and communities to each other and to their homeland. Sprinkled with gentle humour and the Anishinaabe language, this collection of stories speaks to children and adults alike, and reminds us of the timelessness of stories that touch the heart. Also available as an audiobook narrated by Tiffany Ayalik. Find it through your favourite audio retailer!

In this new and improved third edition of the highly popular Game Engine Architecture, Jason Gregory draws on his nearly two decades of experience at Midway, Electronic Arts and Naughty Dog to present both the theory and practice of game engine software development. In this book, the broad range of technologies and techniques used by AAA game studios are each explained in detail, and their roles within a real industrial-strength game engine are illustrated. New to the Third Edition This third edition offers the same comprehensive coverage of game engine architecture provided by previous editions, along with updated coverage of: computer and CPU hardware and memory caches, compiler optimizations, C++ language standardization, the IEEE-754 floating-point representation, 2D user interfaces, plus an entirely new chapter on hardware parallelism and concurrent programming. This book is intended to serve as an introductory text, but it also offers the experienced game programmer a useful perspective on aspects of game development technology with which they may not have deep experience. As always, copious references and citations are provided in this edition, making it an excellent jumping off point for those who wish to dig deeper into any particular aspect of the game development process. Key Features Covers both the theory and practice of game engine software development Examples are grounded in specific technologies, but discussion extends beyond any particular engine or API. Includes all mathematical background needed. Comprehensive text for beginners and also has content for senior engineers.