Many commentators have noted that Sarah Palin has given more interviews in the weeks following the election than in the months beforehand. I think it's adorable and pathetic, a national novelty act grasping for lasting fans like an American Idol winner.

But Joe the Plumber was by far the weirdest phenomenon of this past election. His introduction to electoral politics as a McCain verbal tic was as high-concept as that movie where Kevin Costner is the deciding vote in an American election, and just as insulting to our intelligence. At a debate-watch party that night in Stetson's bar, Joe's mention instantly became a drinking game cue.

I tried to continue the ironic glorification of Joe by dressing up as him for Halloween. I got the idea after my roommate Dave constructed a Joe Six Pack costume. I made my costume at Frager's Hardware store out of a plunger and one of their baseball caps, and provided my own natural grit and surliness. We were workin' Joes, and we made sure to kill the last letter of the word "working." That "g" is for elitists to annunciate.

Nearly everyone I saw that night was costumed, as one might expect of a city so dorky and repressed. D.C. was as outgoing as I'd ever seen it, and I hit the campaign trail hard: I participated in photo-ops with McCain and Palin imposters; called Obama a socialist for laughs; and stuck my plunger to nearly every flat, nonporous surface in the Northwest quadrant.

I'm worried that I might not have promoted my game enough in the Nov. 5 entry, even if I did compare it to the election of the first black president. I've been eager to talk about how I make games, so here are some notes on the process.

I started making web-based games as a way to teach myself Flash and object-oriented programming. The first step was to buy a book. Although I did take a course in Flash in graduate school, years of formal education have taught me that most classes are just value-added books. There are only a half-dozen professors whom I wouldn't trade for good books in the field.

So my real grounding in Actionscript 3.0 came from an O'Reilly book recommended by Professor Johnson. The code behind the games is difficult to explain to all audiences in a single blog entry, so I'll move on to the visuals.

Since my games had no budget, I created many visuals myself with my entirely legitimate, totally purchased copies of Flash and Photoshop. I appropriated other graphics through the public domain and fair use.

Works created by a federal agency are usually considered to be public domain, so I looked to classic U.S. propaganda for imagery in No Babies!, my World War II-themed arcade pregnancy game (sorry--that description was probably startling for anyone who hasn't yet played the game).

Even copyrighted images are usable in some circumstances. For example, the V2 rockets in No Babies! are copies of an actual photo of a reconstructed V2, and whoever took that photo automatically holds the copyright. However, the fair use doctrine gives criteria for making an exception: the amount of the work used, (in this case, an ultra-low resolution cut out); the purpose of use, (personal, nonprofit); and the effect that copying has on the market value of the original (nil). I played a little faster and looser with copyright law to create the H.G. Wells-inspired look of Geodesic, but my imagery still generally comports with the rules above.

To be honest, even if the V2 wasn't strictly fair use, I probably still would have used it. I specifically sought out a photo of the reconstructed V2 after visiting it in the Air and Space Museum. There I learned that the Germans had painted the test missile with its alternating black and white pattern to make it easier to track in flight. Readability is important.

Readability is particularly important in computer games. Studies show that non-gamers often have a hard time telling a game's interactive objects from the scenery. Plus, even the l33test haXX0rs appreciate intuitive goals and controls. The understandability of a visual element seems to be key both to its appeal and usefulness to the user.

Geodesic challenges the player to navigate an invisible landscape of gravitational fields, so the level design needed to provide indirect ways of plotting a course. One way it does this is the rocket's exhaust fumes. The contrail left by these fumes illustrates the player's trajectory, showing them at a glance how the black holes bent their arc of travel. Tiny, physics-enabled particles also flesh out a map of the gravitational field, suggesting how the ship might move before rocket power is added.

The most recent additions to the Flash page embody my particular philosophy toward games. Although Atari classics like Joust and Missile Command are two of my favorites, they can be frustrating when they deliberately slow down the player's progress. Limited lives and other forced restarts were in place in part because the game's creators profited from all the extra quarters you spent when you made a mistake in level 10 and had to start again from level 1. Likewise, the tedious portions of modern games like World of Warcraft exist because these games come with monthly subscription fees.

My games are low-risk and low-commitment because they don't profit from putting you on a reinforcement schedule. Instead, the purpose of my games, like everything on this site, is to "woo women and intimidate other males," and that's why they are made the way they are.

This was a triumph.

I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.

It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.

This song has been in my head every since last night's triumph. I am speaking of course of the tremendous, long-awaited success Americans enjoyed last night: my new physics-based puzzle game was finally published.

Oh, you thought I was referring to Barack Obama's success? No, you see, there's a moratorium on partisan statements on this blog. Some of you will cynically assume it was put in place because I'm looking for a job in the mainstream media. Actually, partisanship is extremely lucrative in journalism right now (ok, not always).

The 24-hour cable news networks, in their capital "J" journalism, will avoid overt partisanship. In a way this is worse than bias, because they're still airing press releases under the guise of considered journalism, but they're making sure there's always one from each camp, as if every fact is merely ammunition in a war of dynasties. You never hear cable news talk about libertarianism, crime, or copyright reform, because these issues have been orphaned by the major parties. You never hear real experts in economics, sociology, or philosophy, because Democratic/Republican "consultants," "strategists," and "spokespeople" are so cheap and plentiful.

That's why I'm avoiding polemics in this blog: not because I'm afraid of being construed as red or blue, but because there are so many more interesting, edifying, and untold perspectives.