A while back I was asking about laptop advice and I got a lot of it. My needs are a little different because I wasn’t really looking for a portable computer in the sense that I needed a machine to haul around with me everywhere I go. The Surface Pro fills that role for me. I wanted a machine primarily for playing video games, that I could put out on my kitchen table when I wanted to play and then tuck away in a drawer when I wasn't using it. I don’t really have a dedicated space for a desktop computer anymore even though I know I could get more bang for my buck going that route.

The Surface Pro 3 does a lot of stuff right. The device is ridiculously light and thin. It still manages to feel sturdy and well built though. The new screen is absolutely beautiful and the extra couple of inches makes a big difference when using it. There will be plenty of great reviews of this machine from all different perspectives, but today I’m just going to talk about how the Surface Pro 3 works for artists.

It's all true, except for the reaction obviously. There is probably some weird thing they're going to do that we aren't prepared for, but having been tamped down so thoroughly by our own parents a lot of this stuff just doesn't seem like a big deal. I guess we'll see who was right.

Well this is terrifying. And exciting. And weird. I mean hi! I'm Jamie, and you'll notice I am not Mike, nor am I Jerry. I am a different person, known around these parts as the protocol droid.

The last time I posted about a Kickstarter expressly to mourn it - Republique, which I described explicitly as a "Kick-Stopper" - I was so glad to be wrong. I thought it would never come out, and that the young people with smart coats engaged dutifully in the act of its creation had done so for naught. Except now the second episode is out, and it's even better than the first one.

He did have a real Art Night, but I assume that the second panel did not actually occur, which would make the third panel a lie heaped upon a lie. He drew boys and girls, he drew boys with their cats and girls with their dogs, he drew them playing basketball and soccer, he drew them as fey folk, occupied with dreams of every sort. He drew a single Gabriel, also, for a dad who must have been very surprised to see him there.

I really did try to avoid playing in the Wildstar beta. I knew any character I made would just get wiped when the game launches in a couple weeks. I figured it was smarter to just wait until it’s actually out and then dive in.

I don't think it's entirely the fault of developers or the genre or any of those things. But we have been so rigorously trained in how to play Massively Multiplayer Games, in precisely the way we train rats, that you fall into that groove. Except it's not a groove, groove. The funk has long since fled. It's more like a rut. I have to break some of this stuff down to enjoy it again, I think. I have Optimization Sickness.

The Child’s Play Invitational 2014 is coming up on June 22nd and we have some stuff going on this time that might appeal to you even if you’re not into Golf.

I'm trying to get back en Twittre (Francais), and it's slow going. Presumably there is a bike metaphor we can leverage. Even though the whole thing is opt-in, people have to specifically choose to listen to me, I still feel like I'm being rude by using it! It makes no sense. So whatever I put in there has to be enough by some mystic standard, and it invariably isn't. As usual, Jane Austen nailed it two hundred years ago:

Card Kingdom has put together "corporate giving and volunteerism" program, read: a Being Rad program, and just like that famous truck it have started to move. They're holding a tournament called The Gauntlet this Sunday to kick the whole thing off. Myself and a few other stalwarts from Penny Arcade have joined in the fight, I don't know about our chances, because I suspect that Card Kingdom is going to draw in some truly savage brutes. But you can sponsor our team from the donation widget - just put PA in the text field, and we will do our best to earn your coin.

The thing you have to remember about Microsoft rumors is that all Microsoft rumors are true.

We have a new survey up that we would love for you to take a look at. We’re looking to get some more information about how folks collect and trade Pinny Arcade pins. Whether you’re already a Pin Pal or you’ve never purchased a pin from us, your info would be super helpful. You can find the survey right here and it should only take a couple minutes.

We were out at lunch with Skarth Quartz, talking about the frankly next level shit he's got going on in Table Titans, and we were talking about how Yelp could help adventurers. That's really it. When you hang out with comic artists, you have to call dibs on ideas like this, which then means you have an obligation to follow through strong. "Ensorcelled locally" is about as good as I can do, folks. Time to go home, maybe.

When I was in Australia, there was an arcade near our "serviced apartment" called Galactic Circus. My son and I used to go there whenever we could, interleaved around various cultural happenings, artisinal laneway grub, and what became known as the sharquarium.

Wildstar is in open beta now until the 18th. You should just go grab it right now. Seriously go start the download now and then come back and finish reading this post when you're done. I'll wait.