There is a lot about being a man I've never understood, a lot of specific phrases that I'm supposed to understand, a lot of stances I supposedly hold, when as a generality I'm only trying to decouple the Hot Pocket from its little microwave holster thingy. The "actuator," I think it's called. But the thing about legs going up never made any sense to me, not that I especially want it explained, because interpreting it literally is actually way better.

My wife Kara took a photo of me this past weekend that I think is pretty profound. I was sitting in the dining room fiddling with my new Oculus Rift. I finally got some cool stuff running on the DK2 and I was having a blast.

PAX Prime is less than three weeks away! I feel like we were just PAXing it up in Boston and here we are about to do it again in Seattle. If you’re coming to the show you can start planning your weekend now by checking out the schedule and figuring out what you want to see. There’s all kinds of awesome stuff happening this year but here’s a quick list of the Penny Arcade related content you’ll find at PAX Prime 2014:

I'll never be there again, as an attendee or as a vendor; that part of my "career" has been decoupled by the charges and will be entirely consumed by re-entry. You will have to watch stock footage to know that it had ever occurred at all. Not because of stuff like this, not exactly. But I won't miss it.

Kris Straub ("Krasp") and I have reached equilibrium. It did not start well. Whatever we are, I would have a hard time describing it.

We have an incredible assortment of pins at PAX Prime this year! Here’s the list for all you Pin Pals.

One of the prizes for winning Strip Search was office space. Not the movie. Like, space in the office. Katie's room is on the way to mine, and she is usually there in the dark, headphones on - a white pair of Sony MDR-V55's, I think - with a look like she is attempting psychically bore her way through the drafting table.

I would say that the best part of being "Tycho" is that I get to meet interesting people who are always doing amazing shit. Tabletop legend Mike Selinker is in that elite cadre of Amazing-Shit-Doers.

Amy The Falcone, who you might remember from Strip Search's Team AmErika, is a monster. Not, like, a lycanthrope or something. But she absolutely has a mode labelled "beast."

First I was gone for San Diego Comic Con and then I had to take off again for Spokane. I’ve been out of the office for weeks and I’m just now back for real. I would like to give a huge thank you to the incredibly talented artists who have been holding down the fort while Tycho and I take a bit of a vacation. This is our 16th year making Penny Arcade and I can tell you that we’ve never had a guest series run this long. I sat down and made a list of all the artists I wanted to reach out to for guest comics assuming I’d get maybe half of them. When they all said they were in, I realised I had booked something like two and a half weeks of comic strips. I might feel bad about it if they weren’t all so amazing.

I’m finally back home after a bunch of traveling. Comic Con has changed a lot over the years. I think 2002 was the very first year we attended. We were guests at Kiko’s “Gameskin’s” booth. 2003 was the first year we actually had our own space. PA reader Nessa was one of the very first people to come see us and she snapped this picture.

I.

We just announced the talk that's getting the show off the ground, and it's by somebody who really had seen it all. There isn't a game released by Klei Entertainment that I don't own, and I know from e-mail threads going back more than a decade how hard some of these lessons were to learn.

Erika Moen is inextricable from San Diego Comic Con in my mind. I had originally written just Comic Con, because the vast preponderance of you would know which one I meant - it is only lesser Comic Cons which must bear the sigil of their low houses. But, just in case.

It was easy to see variations of ourselves in each Strip Search contestant, which is why kicking them off the show was so difficult. Like the scholarship we grant, it feels more like choosing losers than winners, because you do way, way more of the former. Tavis is a point much later in our continuum, much closer to now than most contestants, and I felt it way down.

A tradition almost as old as the show itself, we carve out free booth space for searing Indie heat each time. Every one has a different identity and mission, but the PAX 10 at Prime casts the broadest net. Anything goes - but then, not everything stays. Here's what our superpanel of industry veterans and Penny Arcade staff thought you needed to see. I updated the post with links to where you can grab some of this stuff now, if you want to: