According to Rafael Fajardo, absolutely. In the midst of last Wednesday's snowstorm, Fajardo spoke to a half-filled auditorium at OCAD as part of the Faculty of Design's speaker series. He is currently the Director of Digital Media Studies and Electronic Media Arts Design at Denver University, as well as the Director of SWEAT, a collaborative of video game designers who strive to push gaming beyond the realm of entertainment. Fajardo sees video game design......

Attention basement dwellers: on Wednesday, February 6, OCAD is hosting a free presentation by SWEAT, a collaboration of game designers, programmers, and artists dedicated to bringing socially aware video games to the general public. SWEAT has already produced games like Crosser, a Frogger-esque game about illegal crossing at the US/Mexico border, and is currently developing Juan & the Beanstalk, a game about the societal effects of illegal drug production in Colombia. The presentation will......

Torontoist is one of fourteen cities in the worldwide Gothamist network. Each Sunday, the editors of every site—from LAist to Londonist—choose their most interesting article, a list which is compiled into the network-wide feature Elsewhere In The Ist-A-Verse. Gothamist learned that actor Heath Ledger was found dead in his SoHo apartment, cause of death unknown so far (but apparently the masseuse who found him called Mary-Kate Olsen before 911).Bostonist considered sending a link about the......

After ten years of making wonderfully chaotic post-hardcore, Denver's Planes Mistaken For Stars called it a day in July of this year. They promised one final tour, and made good at the end of November, making their way across the U.S. and Canada before planning to jump across the pond to Europe. A family emergency early this month forced the band to cancel all of their overseas dates and several U.S. ones; in Toronto......

Some bands should come with health warnings. Bright Eyes or The Cure, for example, should warn prospective listeners of the music's ability to make a gloomy-puss out of them. Denver's Apples In Stereo, on the other hand, bring a high risk of developing diabetes. Listening to the pop-rockers is like eating a candy bar with each song: they're short, they're sweet and they leave you wanting another one right after, even though you know you......

Allegedly from Toronto, Rock Plaza Central took New York City by storm this weekend -- opening for Oxford Collapse at The Glasslands in Brooklyn on Saturday, and for Montreal's Malajube and Atlanta's Snowden at the Mercury Lounge in Manhattan on Sunday. An unbelievably energized ensemble of strings, brass, and percussion, Rock Plaza Central just might be this year's most exciting musical breakthrough. The New York crowds seem to have corroborated this claim, as they wouldn't......

Strangely related to the legal South American mind-bender Salvia Divinorum, the chia seed is probably most famous for allowing ceramic animals to grow hair-like grass in the Chia Pet series (as seen on TV and in graphic). Now a Toronto-based reseach firm is claiming that the chia is so healthy, it will blow flax seed and even pomegranate juice out of the Omega-3 stratosphere. The company, called Salba (again, not to be confused with the......