Wednesday, March 28 2018

You will probably think this new gaming arena in Hilliard is a genius business idea 💰👾🕹

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Hello Wednesday. It's James.

Kids and video games are a perennial punching bag for people who are looking for reasons

. It's not always what people think though, and the popular narrative surrounding games seems to take some time to update to what's actually happening. Case in point: kids are incredibly social with games now. In my parenting experience, kids aren't as interested in playing alone as they used to be, and this is borne out when you look at recently massive games like

or the older, but still popular Minecraft.

A man in Hilliard has jumped on this trend, and has started a business catering to gamers who want to socialize with face to face interaction in addition to the usual voice and text chat. It's one of the most inventive business ideas I've seen locally in recent years, and it's the fun kind of business where the better they do, the better their customers will also do. See if you agree.

Wednesday Weather 🌡59 and grab the umbrella - showers mainly before noon, but a chance of rain all day. ☔️🌧

Navigator Originals ✏️The NCAA Women’s Final Four Will Be Taking Over Columbus This Weekend80,000 people will descend on Columbus this week for the NCAA Women's Final Four, and there are events happening all week long. Parents may especially be interested in "Tourney Town", a free festival happening at the Convention Center that will have giveaways, clinics, games, and autograph signings.Da Levee In The Short North To Close April 1Da Levee will be closing as a Cajun inspired concept on April 1st, but the owner will be renovating and re-opening with a new concept. No word yet on what that will be, just that it won't involve gumbo. 

Around Town 🏘A local non-profit in Clintonville has the goal of keeping Clintonville kids in neighborhood schools. The organization (Clintonville Go Public) has raised $100k since it began, spending the money on "classroom materials, beautification projects and scholarships for students who couldn’t otherwise afford to attend an eighth grade Washington D.C. field trip". [WOSU/Evans]John Kasich and Mark Cuban, both potential 2020 presidential candidates (yep) will be appearing at Ohio State on Monday on a panel to discuss “the impact of automation and innovation on the future of work”. The event will take place at 11am in the Ohio Union. [Dispatch/Ludlow]As a parent of two elementary school kids, I enthusiastically endorse this travel association survey that found the majority of parents want kids to start the school year later. I'm not sure if the current Ohio school schedule is good or bad (it's odd we still give kids summers off instead of having rolling breaks throughout the year, yeah?) but this trend of bumping up the start date earlier and earlier in August isn't the best. Plus, there still exist schools in this state with no air conditioning, meaning there isn't much learning happening in those districts in August anyway. [Plain Dealer/Glaser]

Longread 🏛One of the best things I have seen online lately is this Expedia-created article with gifs of 7 ancient ruins around the world that show what they looked like in their prime, along with some discussion of the history of each ruin. The Parthenon, Temple of Jupiter, Luxor Temple, and more are included.Expedia: 7 ancient ruins around the world, reconstructed

Something to say? Hit reply - we read it all.- James