Yeehah, it's time to relax and get a little more esoteric still, and some of these fine GameSetLinks include a look at Valve's GDC slides, as well as some retro Amiga (and SNES) platform book tie-in goodness.

Elsewhere in this fine mess - I particularly enjoyed Chris Kohler's keen advocacy _for_ Wii shovelware - or at least, the ability to choose - because firstly, he makes some fine points, and secondly, America's all about freedom, right? Red white blue - go:

Valve's GDC 2008 talks as PDF slides
Neat, the Portal postmortem slides are actually funny without the talk - via Shackblog.

Introducing the new digital media blog, Dean Takahashi, and NOT Britney Spears » VentureBeat
Ah, the proper VentureBeat relaunch is upon us.

Brand New Braid Gameplay Clips news from 1UP.com
Still mind bending, now great looking - looking forward to its XBLA debut.

Infinite Frontiers: Ian Edginton Interviewed
'I wrote a couple of children's novels a few years back, about Zool (pictured above!), a cartoony ninja computer game character' - never knew there was a Zool novel tie-in!

the-inbetween.com [ The Value of Rez]
'I can relate with the thrill of it because, for a brief time, I was a collector. I’m better now.'

LIVE Activity for week of 2/25 - Xbox Live's Major Nelson
N+ at the top of XBLA in second week, nice.

Opinion: Why Wii Shovelware Is a Good Thing | Game | Life from Wired.com
But you can generally tell the difference between good and bad movies a little easier from looking at the box, right, given there are stars, directors, etc?

GameSpite.net: 'GameSpite Issue 5: Gently-Used Games Journalism'
More good off-work ness from the not 'creatively' bankrupt (Ziff joke!) Jeremy Parish.

‘Gaming’ in Brazil Manifesto « CybeRarts
The state of gaming in Brazil (w/opening swimsuit shot, is that meant to be emblematic?)

...on pampers, programming & pitching manure: What a great time to be alive!
ARG stuff can be spectacularly cool - watch out for a big ARG kingpin interview on Gama soon.

Craiglist: 'Conference Coordinator - Game Group'
Wanna work on GDC and our other conferences? This is a fairly entry level position, but hey, gotta start somewhere!