I actually tried to get into Transformers Trading Card Game, but I couldn't, physically couldn't, because it had been consumed entire by a flock of ravenous robot worshippers. I never had a chance to do anything with Devastator or whatever. I think they have Devastator. I don't know. I've never played it. Remember? Look back up at the top of this paragraph.

Here is a comic strip about Disguised Toast getting on that Zuck Truck for Fuck You Bucks.

It's here! And I don't want to play favorites or anything but holy shit. I gotta have some of these.

There's so much that's surprising about the Half-Life: Alyx announcement. I mean, if you didn't already know about it. I think a lot of people knew about it. In fact, I think a lot of people knew about it and were telling other people about it, which was why they had to announce it. Otherwise, it's weird timing.

I'm shocked as hell that Gabriel is finally playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which you (as an intellectual) will readily recall is a game from 2015. It's even more surprising that it's been the release on the Switch that finally did it, but it doesn't matter to me how he came by it too much. The main thing is that he has an opportunity to learn what we learned, and now irrevocably know: that ghosts, statistically speaking, are real pieces of shit.

Penny Arcade turned twenty one yesterday which is pretty hard to believe. It feels like just yesterday I was laying on the floor of the apartment I shared with Jerry, drawing the first comics with pencils and pens. I've been making Penny Arcade for half my life now and I still love it. I asked folks on Twitter to share their favorite strips and memories from the last 21 years. The resulting thread was a lot of fun to read and is still growing, so I figured I'd share it here:

I didn't mean to taunt Gabriel by not taking his advice on The Mandalorian, but Metal King Studios just put out an official mod for their incredible skirmish campaign wargame Relicblade in Tabletop Simulator and it's the most important thing that's ever happened.

Something people who like Star Wars sometimes discuss is the prevalence of Carbonite Freezing in the setting's various Expanded Universe excursions. It's undeniably one of the more rad things about Empire - and the Han that emerges from that device is decidedly more horrifying than the one we see in Jabba's palace. It's a skin-tight sarcophagus. There are a lot of things to be scared of here. But it's so novel, so experimental, that Han is simply a test of the device. The implication is that it's not common. But it seems to show up a lot. So.

I can't think of anything to say that would promote the set better than just… showing you. Behold:

I'm aware that there are concerns around the truncated Pokedex for Sword and Shield, and there's no more robust defender of the old ways than my son, born eight years after the game launched. He has levied gruesome criticism since the first trailer, was incensed by the worst excesses of the Let's Go era, but as the date has inched ever closer his mind has been seized against his will. I like Pokemon but not enough to beat them. I like to catch a few and give them punny names and then quit. He finishes the Dex. So maybe he's in a better position to understand precisely what these divergences represent; he's like his Uncle, in that respect.

I enjoy watching Judge Judy whenever I watch it, but I haven't watched it in maybe fifteen years outside of the clips Gabriel shows me. My life is not constructed in a way that makes frequent Judy Watching possible. I wasn't aware that it constituted essentially a fundamental aspect of citizenship or that Judge Judy's hunger for justice was only matched by her hunger for manflesh.

I picked up the new Xbox Elite Controller last week and have been using it as much as possible ever since. I really like the series one Elite that I had with only a few minor gripes. I wasn’t a fan of the paddles on the back as I found myself hitting them accidentally. This series two controller has a bunch of updates but I’ll just mention the ones that jump out to me after a few days of playing. 

Luigi's Mansion 3 is about as pure as gaming gets. It's like a pearl, formed by a process of gleaming polish, accreted around a fundamental kernel: that vacuuming is fun. And it is.

I've tried for a few days now to understand the term Sweaty (adj.), sometimes utilized in the noun form Sweat. That is to say, a Sweat is someone who Plays Sweaty and moistens game lobbies such that the lobby itself becomes a Sweaty Lobby. This is a lobby where some of the participants care so much about the outcome of the match that they endeavor to win the round by utilizing perks and weapons. There is some nuance to the position, but it's not actually solvable. People have different reasons for playing games.

There were many possible configurations for this strip, but ultimately we decided that the version which was most pure should reign.

I was talking about it on Wednesday a bit, this network horseshit I was trying to manage with Xbox Parties, and the censers and assorted warlock crap I discovered to resolve it. But I didn't stop being mad. So now there is a strip about it also, in the same way you might place a poultice against an infected gum I hope that it will draw the poison out.