We put Monday's strip up early, so you might have seen it already - but you might not be familiar with the EGM interview it is based on, an excerpt of which appears here. I sometimes worry about appearing partisan in these communiques, but it is not my job to be fair. I'm not a journalist, I'm a consumer. I don't buy one product from each company in the interests of some karmic ideal, and I don't need to purge my posts of wrongthink because I haven't produced something suitable for use as a press release. Sony is grinding down their goodwill with every smug, psychotic interview, and someone needs to tell them so in clear terms.

But the way it works now, you can't really see what you're buying.  They have that Xbox Live Pipeline thing that helps a little bit, but more information is usually better - to that effect, here is all the stuff we just made available.  If you downloaded the new CTS Theme already, just delete it and download it again - it won't cost you anything.  The new one looks like the the ones below, their legibility having been much improved.  Also, the description on Picture Pack Three suggests that there are only nineteen pictures, which is incorrect.  There are twenty! 

Kotaku carried a story yesterday that is (basically) the Nintendo DS version of that Playstation Pornable scare from six months ago. You can see it here, and you should, because it's awesome. It depicts a scenario so imaginative that it juts into the realm of speculative fiction:

Humans sometimes cry out for "more Div, more Div," and since one of these humans is typically Gabriel it is difficult to escape this desire. That I manage to do it so often is a testament to my resolve, my dexterity, and my many other virtues. But even the most resilient, angelic creature is sometimes dragged to earth.

Want to know a secret? We here at Penny Arcade HQ are fucking addicted to Ping Pong. I don’t mean the game by Rock Star either. I mean the real deal table in the basement shake hand or pen grip forehand loop Table Tennis. In talking to some of our friends around here we discovered that our love of the sport is not unique. If you live in Seattle or you came to PAX you should know about Pink Godzilla. They run an import game store downtown and they also happen to have their own internal Ping Pong ladder. When they found out we had our own ladder they immediately began the shit talking. A challenge was issued and the match went down last Friday.

The first part of this strip is from an actual conversation. I'm pretty sure he was joking, though.

Not unlike your local furniture store, Penny Arcade is having a fire sale. We haven’t “lost our lease” or anything like that but it’s still true that “everything must go!” Think Geek has been really incredible to us but we’ve decided to take our store and our merchandise in house. Sometime in early March we’ll be launching our very own Penny Arcade store that will be integrated into the site.

I don't know whose fault it is exactly, mine or theirs, but I won't be installing Vista anytime soon. I would like some crazy shit to happen when I minimize, something don't get me wrong. I want my windows to go Waja-wajow(!) if possible. But if there's a great reason to "trade horses midstream" (or whatever the going metaphor is) I haven't discovered it.

So, yes, I do like it, but there's something I don't understand.

The demo they just put on Live is pretty short, and it is set in Mexico, a venue that was already questionable when they plowed it up again for Rainbow Six: Vegas. R6:V's cover implementation was a revelation, and I think we were also hoping to see GRAW graduate to something a little more fluid - but what do you do? R6 doesn't have the natural terrain, and it doesn't have the reconnaissance features and other field ordnance options.  People are already wondering what separates these two franchises nowadays, and I could provide a comprehensive analysis, but as much as it might rile the hardcore I think standardizing some elements of the interface could be great for both games.

Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime cuts an imposing figure. Forum denizens are routinely shocked by the adulation this man receives, but if you have ever seen him, it isn't especially shocking. He seems to project beyond himself, exerting a kind of Reggie Field that dogs and many birds find unpleasant. Hearing a man speak with this much drive and confidence about an imaginary plumber is sort of enthralling.

I told Gabriel a Joystiq operative had played Mario Party 8 in Japan recently. Much of the entry is given over to an exhaustive description of Hotel Chan-Chan, a "love house" where the author spent his time (and, apparently, several thousand dollars). But in the slender margins of that erotic journal we do get an idea what the Wii could mean to the franchise.

There are two things I must mention.

First, Gabriel liked the cover for book four (entitled "Birds Are Weird") so much that he wanted to make a poster of it, and it's not worth arguing with him when he gets like that so we let him do it.  It is, even now, awailable!

Also:  PAX preregistration opens today, and since we've had a couple of these now you probably know if it's something you'd like to attend.  You save ten dollars over the door price, which is, like, ten bucks.  This is money you could put toward some other purpose!

(CW)TB

I uploaded the comic early, as many of you noticed. I entered the wrong number in the update field. You may also have noticed that the spelling in these posts has really gone to hell. So, that's numbers and letters. I hope to one day discover a set of pictograms with which I can manage some baseline fucking proficiency.

I mentioned the Nerdcore Rising documentary a few weeks ago and I know a lot of you were interested in it. Well the girls doing it have decided to help build interest in the film by highlighting one of the many nerds they met on their journey each week. They call it the Nerd of the Week and the first Nerd is actually PAX. I'll go ahead and plug the Youtube version in right here so you all can check it out. I think they did a fucking incredible job cutting this together.

Gabe keeps coming into the Goddamn office with his Goddamn tales of high adventure, telling me about how there's tokens or some shit in Burning Crusade now, or maybe tiers, and other words I had scoured from my consciousness. He also says there is hot new five-man content, which initially sounded like pornography. The comic is correct - I purchased it in a moment of weakness. As I must often approach you, the cherished reader, to apologize for this or that indiscretion, it may be more appropriate to say that I have moments of strength which are suspended in cowardice and moral decay.