I was searching around the internet yesterday, and I stumbled upon a gold mine.
http://www.alanemrich.com/PGD/PGD_Directory.htm
Alan Emrich is a published game designer (mostly war games), that teaches courses. The link is to his game design course. The course is spread over 11 weeks with homework and everything. He gives some excellent links to game design articles and free shareware board games out there.
While his game design slant is towards war games and a little on the computer gaming side, there is a lot to get from his website. I was up to 2AM in the morning reading and searching through all of the links.
Check it out, it's really great.
--DarkDream
Great find!! Especially the Top 10 Reasong to Be a Game Designer! I plan to spend a great portion of my weekend pouring over it!