Mainstream Media Coverage of Machinima Festival

Finally seeing some mainstream coverage of the machinima festival on cnet (I forgot to check NYT the next day as they seem to be really on top of all things virtual - was there any coverage). Some nice pics as well. A few points to add:

1. There was an announcement that there is a group of kids that will be making machinima for a class project (Global Kids?). Cool! I wish I had this stuff when I was growing up (although it's debatable that I've matured at all).
2. There seems to have been some "discussions" about how Second Life was not properly rewarded at the awards since everything in SL is created by users vs. games where a large developer creates all the assets and a machinima maker will just come along and appropriate it. Listen, by that logic, the more special effects and the size of your crew will determine if you win and Oscar or not. Sorry, that logic does not follow. Maybe there should be an award for best custom assets (best special effects?, custom assets, hard work) but otherwise Eric Linden said it best on Secondcast, the story is king (episode 42 - nice guy, I talked to him briefly and he definitely seems very friendly and very willing to lend a helping hand to machinimists in SL).
3. I didn't know Paul Marino had won an Emmy!

In other notes. I've almost finished watching all of the machinima nominees for the Xfire WoW contest, and the machinima festival (I spent most of my time in the panels and production workshops).