Genre Exercises

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​​​McSweeney's: Dystopian sci-fi horror about rude social media Reply Guys​​​

"I don’t enjoy playing the role of That Annoying Internet Guy who reflexively replies with hectoring know-it-all comments like 'Why are you surprised?' or 'How is this news?' But people force me..."

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​​WIRED Magazine's Angry Nerd​​

Variety once ​dubbed me​ "a grumpy bald guy billed as a digital Andy Rooney." I'll take that! My bitter rants about pop culture earned me a reputation around the Wired office, and my colleagues eventually gave me a monthly column to hold forth on how comics, sci-fi, and other geeky properties were being ruined. It was eventually turned into a YouTube series. I wrote, produced, and starred in video segments in a series that garnered 22M+ pageviews, and was a ​Webby Award Honoree​ in the Video: Variety & Reality category. I did social promo videos and mixed it up with viewers across five social channels.

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​​Cybersecurity Quest: A Funny Interactive Quiz​​
I collaborated with technology writer Chris Null and illustrator Álvaro Bernis on this interactive quiz for Microsoft WorkLab, helping shape the comedic voice, fantasy framing, reader outcomes, and puzzle-like structure. I ensured that each question struck a balance between humor and utility, that the visuals always riffed on fantasy tropes as well as computer iconography, and that each reader received a personalized evaluation that graded their security habits.

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​​Found: Artifacts from the Future​​

I helped develop the monthly back-page feature Found: Artifacts From the Future, a series of speculative fake artifacts presented entirely through diegetic text and visual context. Each installment had to land an immediate high-concept visual joke, then reward closer reading with additional humor and worldbuilding details hidden in the fine print.

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​​Statgeist: a series of funny charts and graphs​

A monthly roundup of tech and culture trends in the form of charts and graphs.

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​​WIRED Decode puzzle editor​​

I served as the unofficial puzzle editor at Wired magazine, coordinating puzzle concepts, editorial packaging, and visual execution for the monthly Decode features and related special projects. I was also editor of the ​Wired Decode puzzle blog​, working with Mike Selinker and the team at Lone Shark Games, as well as crossword champion Tyler Hinman, Alternate Reality Game expert Michael Andersen, Thomas "Dr. Sudoku" Snyder, and LEGO sculptor and puzzle designer Eric Harshbarger.

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​​The Cyberathlete "Fatal1ty" totally pwns me ... IN F​R0NT OF A ROOMFU1 OF STR4NG3RS​​
I challenged the esports superstar Fatal1ty, the Tiger Woods of first-person-shooters, to a Quake death match. Read the thrilling story! (SPOILER: I G0T MY 4SS K1CK3D.)

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​​A secret metapuzzle buried in an award-winning issue of Wired ​​
​I worked as editor with the brilliant team at ​Lone Shark Games​ on this package of metapuzzles threaded throughout the May 2009 issue of the magazine, as well as a series of ​straightforward puzzles​ designed by some of the geekiest and most prominent puzzle designers in the world, including Times crossword editor ​Will Shortz​ and the prolific ​Martin Gardner​. Read more about where puzzles were hidden throughout the issue, from the spine to the masthead to the collophon to a phony jump page.

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​​Board games besed on video games based on board games​​

"In case you haven’t been in a toy store lately, Hasbro has released a board game based on the smash online game Bejeweled. Ridiculous as that sounds, it pales in comparison to Zynga, which bought the company that turned Scrabble into Words With Friends and then turned that back into a board game. Oh, and then it bought the company that turned Pictionary into Draw Something and turned that into a board game too … oh God, my brain."

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​​A fawning Q&A with a fully CG cinema starlet​​​

I conducted a softball interview with the software creation S1MONE (as channeled by filmmaker Andrew Niccol.)

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​​​WIRED MAGAZINE: A World Almanac entry for a fantasy realm​​​

This article treated the virtual world of MMORPG Everquest's virtual world of Norrath like any other country