====== G,Ames ======


===== Recruitment =====

I believe I first heard about the NPL at my [[misc:acpt1998|first Stamford tournament]], which was 
March 1991. The existence of the NPL is always announced to the assembled masses there. I didn't join
at that time, though. Of course, I heard about it again when I went back to [[misc:acpt1998|Stamford]] 
in March 1992. It was just after that 1992 tournament that [[Willz]] recruited me for an actual job 
as an editor at //Games//. (He offered me the job on April 1. I made him swear it wasn't a joke.) 
I believe I was trying to decide whether to join the NPL, brought it up with [[WILLz]], and he said 
it would be a good idea for me as a puzzle editor. So if you want to say [[WILLz]] recruited me, that 
would probably be appropriate. I may have discussed it with others at the time, but who remembers? 

//First Issue//: Jan 1992

===== Recruits =====

  * [[Hohenzollern]] (via June 95 //Games// article).

===== Nom =====

I was casting around for something, and was seriously considering Toying Damsel, which is a 
lovely anagram of my name that I'd come up with in the past (my name has such wonderful letters 
for anagramming, I always say it's one of the reasons I didn't change it when I got married). 
It seemed a little clunky, though. I had already been hired by Games Magazine and was due to 
start work there soon when Helene had a puzzle party to which I was invited. (As it happens, 
I lived in Princeton at the time, as did [[Helene]].) I was looking at someone's Games
T-shirt (my own new one? I can't even remember that!), with its five capitalized boxed letters, 
when it struck me that "GAMES" consisted of Ames, a common nickname for Amy (actually used sometimes 
by my parents), preceded by the initial of my last name! G,Ames, then, was like a short version of 
Goldstein, Amy--that's why the G and the A must be capitalized. (Contrary to the confused 
understanding of some, the "mes" need not necessarily be lowercase.) The pronunciation is "Gee-Ames,"
which goes with the meaning. Sure, it looks like Games, that's the point, but it's not said that 
way. When I lost my job at Games last year, along with pretty much the rest of the staff,
several people asked if I was changing my nom. No way! It was never really about Games Magazine, 
just games in the general sense. 

==== Combinoms ====

No data.

===== Offices =====

No data.