I'm getting my stuff together for the MOP LAN Party this weekend, and when loading the CD's into my CD case it seemed to me such a motley connection of weird crap. I don't even know how half of this got in here, but it's such a messed up cross section of the last six years that I had to post it. Some of these things are shameful, but I'll leave that for you to determine.

I'm as shocked as anybody, but Gabe is completely into Asheron's Call 2. I invariably must play a game like this by myself until I find a somebody to crew with, but it's actually him that suggested it. Having never played a game of this kind, he couldn't understand the fairly random distribution of loot gained by victorious combat - i.e., what is this Rat Man doing with a lute? There are, of course, many possibilities - though only one seems truly plausible.

It looks like we have the same incentive to pre-order the new Zelda that they did in Japan - that Zelda 64/Ura Zelda bonus disc. If you don't know what I mean, give this link a little clickeroo.

My nightly MechAssault partner, Kiko of Gameskins.com fame has just informed me that Penny Arcade shirts are back in stock. If you have been dying to get your hands on either a Wang Fu or a Shut your Pie Hole shirt now is your chance. I know it sounds cliché but you should get them while they last. Wang Fu especially has a way of disappearing with a quickness.

I get press releases all the time, but I usually don't post them because I don't find the content terribly interesting. This stuff warrants mention.

I'm also crazy about Acronyms, and to it warms my heart to present to you the Penny Arcade Internet Notification Tool. With us posting more here, and at odd times, this tray utility will let you know when we put something up. Feel free to grab a copy, and if you like it, please let its author Neil know that you love him.

When I professed my nearly psychotic fascination with HBO series shows like Oz or The Sopranos, many people wrote in to suggest that Band of Brothers was not to be missed. It's out on DVD now, I honestly don't know when it came out, but I hope it was recent or else I'm telling you something you already know. The Boxed Set is a very nice little production, though almost overwhelming in expense when purchased at retail - renting each of the five DVDs or queueing them up on Netflix or whatever is probably the more sensible approach. I've only just seen the first one, and it left me so satisfied I wanted to take a nap.

There is a level in Mechassault called River City, a pretty cool urban environment which becomes a bouquet of twisted wreckage about five minutes into the match. Do otherwise rational beings actually live there? If not, what are the buildings for? And who builds them back up, thinking this, surely this will be the last time a parade of mechanical giants redecorates the place with futuristic weapons?

A reader was kind enough to point me towards Spike after reading my last update. It appears as though the dream of a single wireless controller for all your systems is not as far off as I thought. I read over their page and the technology sounds pretty fucking cool. I can’t wait till they deliver on it.

Q: Is that a big screen on the right? If so have you had any problems with games burning images on the screen?

I think it's great how you can look at a picture like his old entertainment center and date it - like some scientist - based solely on the consoles present. Also, you can see how the stuff looks now on his fancy new Bob Vila shit, but it was in a pretty sad state. I think the thing that finally pitched him over the edge into Home Depot territory was the Xbox, which he had to pile everything else on top of. Not only was it hard on the eye, it was like a treacherous, fabulously expensive variation on Jenga every time he added a new component.

I'll get something up here soon, I just thought that while I had his post here I might as well upload it. I still feel kind of whacked out from my trip. Strip's there, though.

Last week I got some new cables and I spent a large part of Thanksgiving Day wedged behind my television set stripping speaker wire and replacing cables. After I was done I sat back on my couch and took a look at my setup. While it's true that my wiring job was a work of art it was hidden behind the television set where no one could see it. What people could see was my ass ugly book shelf kind of thing holding all my equipment.

Well the Penny Arcade Internet Notification Tool or P.A.I.N.T is done. It's been tested and it appears to work great. For those of you who don't know about P.A.I.N.T, it is just a program that notifies you whenever PA gets updated. However due to it's size, 1.3 megs we aren't going to be able to host it on the PA server right away. The guys at Homelan anticipate a pretty big demand for the tool and I think they are probably right. Anyway, if you have the space and the bandwidth to host a file like this please contact Neil and let him know.

I come back to see if I've spelled things correctly, and he's found some way to turn a mea culpa regarding his own sloth into a personal insult against me. Yes, that's very convincing!

I think Alias Sketchbook is absolutely incredible. Feel free to take a look at the sketch below and decide for yourself.