Last night's Pokemon get together was a big success. We actually had a really good turn out and lots of people brought their cards. I ended up playing some miniatures and then a few rounds of the TCG. We're meeting again next Tuesday same time and place. After that we'll go every other Tuesday night. Assuming everyone sticks with it we can register our league with the Pokemon site and do some official tournaments and even get some prize support I think. In the meantime we can talk about the league in this forum thread. Now that I think about it we might actually want to have a separate forum instead of just a thread. I'll look into setting that up.

This rumor - the rumor about a Texas based BioWare being behind a Star Wars MMO - keeps coming back because I think we really want it to be true. We invest in it, we fantasize about it. It's also just a great rumor: it flips all the right switches, it has that Returning King quality that manufactures legend.

Even though, according to the forum only two other human beings will be attending our Pokemon night I'm still very excited. So excited in fact that I did some fan art. Colors coming soon.

I guess there's a chance that some of you reading this might not have pets with leaky butts. I do, and let me tell you it's no fun. Every time we take our cat to get her butt squeezed the doctor tells me she can show me how to do it at home. She suggests it would save me some money. There are certain things I am willing to do at home to save money. For example, I ask my wife to cut my hair. Something I won't do is reach into my cats asshole and wring out its butt juice. I'm willing to pay a professional for that.

Tomorrow night is the first meeting of the Arcadia Battle Academy. That's the name given to the Pokemon TCG league we're trying to start. We'll be meeting at the Comic Stop in Lynnwood from 6pm to 8pm tomorrow (Tuesday the 23rd). I've gone ahead and created a thread that you can post in right here. If you're planning on attending and you wouldn't mind making a quick post in there I'd appreciate it. I'd like to get an idea of attendance before tomorrow if possible. We're going to focus mainly on the Pokemon TCG. It will be a chance to play new decks and hopefully learn more about the game. Go ahead and bring your boxes and binders if you want to do some trading. Also, this is an all ages deal so if your kids play please feel free to bring them.

Like I said I want to focus on the TCG but I will also be bringing a box of the new Pokemon Miniatures if anyone wants to give that a try. You can even bring your Diamonds and pearls if you want to trade or battle on the DS.

It turns out there's another Pokemon TCG league that meets at the same time pretty close to us. We may end up wanting to shift our time for the next get together so as not to compete with the other group. We can figure out the frequency and time of our meetings tomorrow night.

Speaking of card games it looks like Eye of Judgment is still set to ship tomorrow. If you pick it up and your looking for a game Tycho and I are ready. We have it set up here in the office and the account on this PS3 is "CWGabe". So go ahead and add that name to your friends list.

-Gabe out

In case you are wondering, cats apparently need regular maintenance, like cars. And, like an oil change, this juicing process can be done (I'm told) at home, preferably with the curtains drawn and a couple inches of sawdust laid down. That's right: you can wring out your own cat's asshole. This is the kind of helpful information you can expect when you visit Penny Arcade. Don't everybody run home at once.

I just have two quick things to mention.

The second page of our Assassins Creed comic is now up. These are the only two pages they're going to release online so if you want more you'll need to pick up the collectors edition of the game.

Also if you're interested in the Pokemon CCG check out my post from Monday. I'm planning a get together Tuesday the 23rd at the Comic Stop in Lynnwood. It will be 6pm to 8pm or until they kick us out. You can read my old post for all the details.

-Gabe out

There was so much news, we had to poke it with a schtick. I'm allowed one or two puns like that a year. At least, I hope.

As suggested by Gabriel's recent communique, pokemania is not only going strong but has burst, like some foul canker, and the infection has spread. It's true that I have built a so-called "Leaf Deck," but this is because I was fairly certain they would beat me up if I didn't. Now he's hauling in his case of Next Quest figurines each day, as I myself once hauled a tacklebox of Necrons, only I need to stress that it was more awesome when I was doing it, because Necrons are unkillable harvesters of flesh and not some kind of weird fox or living scarf. It's absolutely fucked that I have spent almost fourteen years trying to reveal the subtle glories of table gaming, only to be cast down time and time again. However wise my counsel, it apparently lacked that crucial munchkin component.

I'm pretty frustrated with the Dunder Mifflin Infinity ARG. The site functionality is just trash. The biggest offense is the piece of shit forum they've got. It's the one way for the whole branch to talk together and it's absolute crap. Also I still can't hire new employees. There's almost 1500 people waiting to join the Spokane branch but trying to hire anymore than two at a time breaks the site for me. I contacted tech support last week and never heard back. A couple people have suggested that the website being shitty is on purpose. I don't know if I'm ready to believe it's all some ironic joke. What I do know is that interacting with their game is frustrating and I'm not sure I want to bother with it anymore.

Just about everyone at PA has been sucked into the Pokemon Card game. As usual, Kiko and I have probably fallen the furthest down the rabbit hole (Thanks OCD!). We both study the Pokegym forums and tinker with multiple decks. We even looked into attending one of the local tournaments that took place over the weekend. I'm not sure we're ready for Battle Road just yet but we do want to play some new people. With that in mind, we've decided to try and set up a local league.

I should have all the science lined up by the end of the week, ready to stuff into the piano black lozenge I've obtained to celebrate my return to personal computing. Wish me luck; I've never before had the opportunity to fry four processors at once.

Okay, it looks like I got some bad info. It turns out Ubi is only releasing the first two pages of our comic online. If you want more than that you'll need to wait and pick up the collectors edition of Assassins Creed. I apologize for the lies I told you before.

I got a ton of requests for a wallpaper of the first panel in today's strip. I went ahead and whipped one up but then I remembered a couple other panels I had gotten wallpaper requests for. Sorry it took me so long to knock these out.

I didn't realise it before but the comic we did for Assassins Creed is also being shown online. You can still get the printed version in the collectors edition of the game. The first page just went live today over on the official site. Here's a direct link if you're interested. It's an eight page story and I'm actually not sure what the release schedule for the rest of the pages is. I'll be sure and let you know here as they become available.

Having already purchased two fifths of The Orange Box over the last few years, the level of value I have derived from it is "fantastic" but not "supernatural." For Gabriel, who never finished the second Half-Life and never purchased the first episode, the aforementioned Box represents an intimidating and possibly even brutal level of content for one's holiday dollar. It's hard enough trying to keep up with all the games that are coming out, but when you start putting more than one game on the disc the difficulty is compounded. We're lucky, then, than the best thing on there can be completed in only a couple hours.

Today's comic outing can be found here.  A reader sent us a link to an eBay auction for a decommissioned Titan Missile Base a couple weeks ago, and we're still completely obsessed with the possibilities.  We felt confident that once you learned of it - and truly considered its fabulous subterranean potential - these fantasies would become a universal affliction.

Today's post is by Raph Koster.  Raph Koster is...  well, he's Raph Koster.  He's also Raph Koster.   He's had his hand in so many MMOs and been the engine of so much player controversy it would be hard to summarize him in a couple italicized paragraphs.  It's fair to say that he has considered the systems unique to persistent, multi-user environments as much as any person alive - probably more.  He has his own company now, making something called Metaplace, which is both the mechanism behind his new game and a platform for people to make their own multiplayer experiences.

I used to go to a toy shop in the mall and play with the Rokenboks there, when I had the time to go to toy shops in the mall for hours and not buy any things.  I'm excited to see what shakes out with the NetDevil's LEGO MMO, but I had so much fun playing with those weird little toys that I've always wondered how a cooperative game based on civil construction might work.  I'm lucky to know someone who could actually answer this question. 

This is today's comic, which represents an authentic conversation between my son and I.  There really should be some kind of licensing requirement for procreation. 

Today's post is from Joel DeYoung, who worked on The Simpsons: Road Rage and The Simpsons: Hit and Run.  He's on over at Hothead now, working on our shit, but this post isn't about his contributions to the regular industry:  it's about his incredible work on SquawkBox.  What is that?  Well, you'll find out soon enough.  I couldn't believe I'd never heard of it before.