Well I’m back from Hawaii and feeling pretty damn good. Kara and I realized a few months ago that we’d never really taken a proper vacation. We go down to the Oregon coast every summer but that’s just a few hours away and even in the summer the beach there can be pretty cold. Other than that the only time we travel anyplace is for a convention and those can hardly be considered vacations. So we decided it was time to go someplace warm and relaxing for a change and so we spent five days on Maui.

And so, our own pilgrimage comes to a close. Thank you! I think we all had fun. I should stress that "we" refers to your cruel hosts, Gabriel and myself, who over the last eight years have tormented you thus with such dedication and enthusiasm.

The third chapter in our saga of dismay and dismemberment is now available.

Imagine that there exists a great machine.

And so it begins: The Pilgrimage, Part One. There are (as intimated earlier) The Pilgrimages parts one through four. I will grant you that this is an odd genesis, but if you just strap yourself in and sign this sheaf of carefully crafted legal waivers, we will expose you to comic rays of unknown and perhaps unknowable power.

Gabriel will be gone for the week, having earned given a brief respite from his toils here at the Arcade. In addition to truly massive amounts of storyboarding and character design for Precipice, he just did the cover for the new MC Frontalot album, and then wrestled a bison. Immediately afterward! He's exhausted.

Despite the savageries I have borne for purchasing a Zune, I did buy it for a reason, and I held this reason tight in my palm like a mystic amulet.  The strip focuses on Gabriel's growing zealotry, its dark seeds bursting into clutching vines. The credit card was out, he was ready to buy, and I'll be God damned if I wasn't right there with him.

MC Frontalot just sent me a mail and let me know that a trailer is now avaliable for the Nerdcore Rising Documentary. There’s a lot of footage from PAX in the trailer so you may see yourself. Tycho and I make a very brief appearance as well.

It's been made abundantly clear that Ten O'Clock is time for Rainbow Six. It is not time for other games! You might think that it is, but it isn't. Don't show up at 10:05! That's not when it is.

Tech writer Dean Takahashi - that would be Dean "Opening The Xbox/The Xbox 360 Uncloaked" Takahashi - mentioned an upcoming documentary on his blog. Entitled "Moral Kombat," the trailer for it is mostly a sensationalist sort of hook whose urgent piano strains to convey the unrelenting danger of the coming Cyber Game War. I sincerely doubt the tone of the piece matches this trailer, given some of the participants - for example, I don't think that Henry Jenkins would be party to a hysterical dialogue, even in an attempt to tame it.

Sorry - I sort of have Zune on the brain at the moment. Also, we (and apparently Bill Gates) are addicted to that Cascada song. For some reason science cannot explain.

We actually found ourselves at the mercy of the Y2k7 bug - a lesser known bug, I'll grant you.  I think we got 'er squared away now.

(CW)TB
 

I've used a lot of wiggle language and grim turns of phrase, but I am not actually unhappy with my purchase. As the only person outside of Microsoft's blogger phalanx to appreciate the device, it feels very much like I should be. It presents interesting "scenarios", but opportunities to use them are (for me) so rare that they never factored into my decision making process. I would say that there are three key reasons I own one, which might help you make sense of it.

In the stillness after the Wii launch, owners of the odd console may have slipped into lethargy in advance of the next official Nintendo release. Their Wiimotes, bolstered by robust new straps, rest in cases of velvet. Now would be a great time to get them out.

Following “The Feast of Afterwinter” we waited a full nine months before doing “As Spring Dawns”. One of the things I try and do with the CTS strips is force myself to draw things that I don’t normally draw. If you look back through them you’ll see that they almost all start with some sort of nature scene. Obviously that sort of imagery is super important to the whole Samurai theme. But also I have a hard time drawing that sort of thing so it’s a good exercise.

It is here - the final page of The Hawk And The Hare. Why is is called that? Well, now you know.