People sometimes give me really awesome stuff at PAX. I get stuffed animals, sculptures,poems,pins and all kinds of other cool stuff. One of the coolest things I received at this years show was an incredible pixel art painting of Kid Icarus from a reader named Woody. I was so impressed with the workmanship that I immediately commissioned a PAC-Man piece from the artist. Well it's been about a month and I just got a picture of the finished painting this morning.

In the steel womb of our sunken laboratory, we have discovered an odd principle. You're welcome to try it for yourself. Of course, this assumes that you are old enough to become young. If you are only twelve when you begin playing Mega Man 9, please be sure that someone is there to care for the resultant fetus.

Daniel James has a presence which extends somewhat beyond the borders of his person, so that when you meet him it seems like you are having a Very Real Experience.  As a game designer and a CEO (in that order), his company Three Rings is known for putting out incredibly quirky shit.  I asked him to write a piece because I knew it would be interesting, but also because (as the purveyor of several digital worlds) he's in a unique position to discuss it. - (CW)TB

I used to see Chris Remo at virtually every industry event I attended - this was back when I attended industry events.  He was always in the same spot:  camped out low against some wall, laptop open, the perpetual newsman.  I know that the intersection of DRM and the PC gaming community is a nexus of interest to him, and I wanted to offer up a space to collect his thoughts. - (CW)TB

With his wavy locks and hard-ass goatee, Brian Crecente brings a venturesome, tremendously Zorro quality to games journalism.  As Managing Editor of Kotaku, our paths tend to cross alot.  He's good people, and I was curious what he'd have to say on this week's topic.  Turns out he's kind of a poet.  - (CW)TB  

We just did a huge restock, so a lot of stuff is ready to go.  In particular, these things may intrigue slash delight you:  

I would say that your paintings are, in general, far more honest than your digital output.  What I mean by this is that you are a liar and your "work" constitutes a suite of hostile, spiteful acts against the viewer and humanity itself.  Those who have the misfortune of viewing your ordinary work - and I believe "ordinary" is the correct term - become less human as a result.  

I've still been painting most nights and I'm learning a ton. I suppose I could try and take a class or something but I've always figured that learning by doing is the best way to go. You make a lot more mistakes but there's value in that process. This latest painting for example got completely painted over three times I think. 

Gabriel's birthday has an epicenter, and its effects flow out, so that the week before and after these interminable coronations represents an grim kind of season, devoted to the cursed day of his birth. We suggested during last year's comic and post that we would reveal how this holiday is celebrated in other countries, and in a rare kept promise, we have done so.

Grabbed the Fracture demo, not because it was an especially bright blip on an increasingly crowded radar but because it was available, and also because this guy's excitement is fucking infectious. There is literally nothing I get that excited about. There's a few more trailers out there, maybe they answer some of our urgent questions, but it is not the policy of this site to take reality into account.

Pay close attention to 5, 6, and 7 in Tom Chick's distillation of Guitar Hero: World Tour, and wonder why you've been so ill-served by every other preview currently available. 

When we are discussing fair food, it might be useful to note that we are talking about the Puyallup Fair. My father used to work said fair when I was a young man, so my memories of the event are optimal. He'd somehow gotten plugged into some vast carnie fraternity, so that everywhere I went there was a nod and a handful of tickets, slyly conferred. I wasn't able to attend this fair, which makes the Tycho present in the strip a simulation of a simulation. Barring the days spent in the alternate dimension of PAX - or speaking to your aggregated consciousness, here - every moment has been dumped into writing the next Precipice.

Razer has a form up to get a replacement mouse, if something has gone awry with yours. 

The friendly way to present the Seinfeld Vista ads is that they "get people talking." This is an adjunct to the notion that there is "no bad press," a lie we are happy to expose on a regular basis. Admittedly, I'm obsessed with advertising as a means of communication. I think it's possible to communicate virtue in a way that is ethical, interesting, and genuine.

Today's comic is a chuck wagon of unpleasant realities.

After Gabe logged off for the night, Robert - who had grown tired of my brutal golf techniques in previous rounds - entered the fray with Tiger Woods. While tethered to the real world, Tiger Woods is an excellent golfer. His counterpart in the videogame that bears his name is not a golfer but a kind of God, a barely coherent being of pure light that has yoked physics and cannot be beaten, except by another Tiger Woods - some other gleaming bead in that perpetual chain we call the Tigerion.