Fallout 4 is the very first Fallout game I’ve ever played. I’ve talked a bit before about how these open world games tend to paralyze me. I wander around feeling like I’m missing tons of stuff. I worry that I’m missing some important thing because I went left instead of right. I used to feel like if I was not “progressing the story” I was wasting time. What I finally realized is that everytime I sit down to play, I’m progressing MY story. I stopped thinking about what the game wanted me to do and just did what I wanted to do. Now I’m having awesome adventures every night!

(I have been told that for several hours the entire post was a single, gigantic link. I did this as a radical UI concept, to maximize the surface area of the hypertext. Gabriel said it looked like a "broken link." Pearls before swine.)

Lightly paraphrased from the original.

My son Gabe is ten years old now. He is very much like me. He prefers reading to playing outside. He gives up his recess time at school to help in the library. I still remember doing the exact same thing when I was in fifth grade. Unfortunately he also got my anxiety. He has good days and bad, but recently he’s been having an especially hard time. I am able to understand what he’s going through and so I feel like I can provide some help but I also know just how hard it can be to change the way your brain works. He told me last night that they were having a discussion in class about diseases and kids were talking about the ones they were familiar with. Gabe raised his hand and brought up chronic anxiety. Many of the kids didn’t know what that even was. I asked how he handled that and he told me how he explained it to them.

We are occasionally ill-served by the One More Win policy; there are times when it compounds the shame and does not result in a reaffirmation of our victorious destiny. We will occasionally invoke the policy retroactively, even. There have been nights where the first round was so good, an exemplar, such a burning display of our martial vigor that we stop right then, immediately.

As of 10am this morning, the valiant Desert Bus just crossed into Day 3 of their harrowing journey - and, at over $173,000, they're already going nuts over there. I will be very surprised if last year's record can keep a grip on the belt.

I’ve been playing around with a Surface Book for a couple of weeks now and I wanted to share some thoughts. It’s an interesting device, that for me has been equal parts frustrating and awesome.

Tavis Maiden has always struck me as a very metal sort of name, and he has rocked you for a week, in a manner similar to that of a hurricane. Here is his last morsel; thanks, man. We needed the help.

Tavis Maiden (this, this, this, this) is congenitally predisposed to wolf. One more on Monday to wrap up.

So if you want to submit a panel for PAX South, this is an incredible opportunity. Individual day tickets are also available; if you want to attend the whole show, I'd make a run on them now before one of the days sells out.

Tavis Maiden (who does all kinds of shit) is here with more wolfs and he is continuing to wolf.

If you missed this PAX Prime panel, or you want to see it, or if you are curious what kind of a game could be made in an hour, I have exactly what you need. The game designers were a kind of supergroup with a core group of "Sharks," plus a couple other ultra-pros, but this would be a great time to remind everybody that Gabe's "Thornwatch" game has become three games - Thornwatch, The Lookouts, And Daughters Of The Eyrewood - and we're trusting Lone Shark Games to make them with us.

Tavis Maiden (Tenko King, Binwin's Minions, Stranger Danger, Strip Search, Probably Other Stuff) is taking a turn with The Lookouts with "The Wolf" for a few days. Let's tune in.

Writing comics with a not-mike - of which there are many, the Earth is lousy with them - was bizarre. I talk with a lot of people about their comics, but it's in the manner of a Consultant, where I make pronouncements of various kinds and then make my escape shortly before any actual work needs to be done. This time I had to actually forge a connection with another human being and then try to run signal along that connection. It was… novel. I had a super good time with Kris Straub ("Krasp Strib") plumbing the figurative depths of bat sex, but the rest of the time was good too. Every second could be recommended on its own terms.

Well I am still alive. Sorry Twitter. What happened?

There's been a ton of acquiring lately - and the inherent complexities lend themselves to a specialist approach. Welcome to Acquisitors, Part Six, which could well be called "The Final Acquisition" because it's the last one. On Friday we'll have the strip that Kris and I wrote and he drew live at the show, and then next week we've got Tavis Maiden - of Tenko King, Binwin's Minions, Stranger Danger, and of course Strip Search fame - is gonna take a crack at a quick Lookouts story he's had bangin' around.