Everybody heard, right? A Firefly MMO? I should probably establish firmly that there is no pre-pre-alpha of the game available, to put pistol-packing browncoats at ease. We were just goofing around in the strip, without even the trace particles of truth we ordinarily rely upon.

So it’s Friday and I have another Child’s Play update for you. We’ve added up all the toys and cash donations again and you guys are not going to believe where we are now. Remember that just last Friday the total was $260,000. Well as of today the new total is $495,000 in toys and cash! I’m not joking, you guys donated more than $230,000 in one fucking week! The crazy thing is it’s only the 8th of December. This is our fourth year running Child’s Play and you guys amaze me every single year.

We talked with the GameSHOUT croo about Child's Play yesterday, a process that required we install Ventrilo. I understand that Ventrilo use among the young has reached troubling levels, but as devotees of Battlefield Commander (and then Sidewinder GameVoice) who migrated to TeamSpeak, we never dabbled in your Roger Wilcos et. al.

This is pretty awesome. If you’re looking for another way to give to Child’s Play this year you should check out this link. Some independent Mac developers are teaming up and donating all the proceeds from sales of their software on Dec. 7th to Child’s Play. You can see all the details as well as a list of software on their site.

Don't forget, East Side friends: Fünde Razor is tonight, at Brooklyn's Barcade. I wanted to mention it again for several reasons. One, it is awesome. Two, it is an opportunity to mention the Events Page at the Child's Play site. There are quite a few sanctioned activities, maybe one in your hometowns!!!  Also, I wanted to draw attention to the unbelievably cool guitars they are raffling off this evening. They're Guitar Hero compatible guitars, made by a genius and built into real instruments. I wonder what it would take to buy one outright.

Tomorrow is the last day to purchase tickets for the Child’s Play charity dinner and auction. Someone who would like to remain nameless has actually purchased a block of tickets and asked us to give them away in some sort of contest. If you’d like to try and win a pair of tickets all you need to do is write and draw your own three panel comic strip. We’ve decided to make it a little bit harder than that though. You’re comic will need to incorporate a few things in order to qualify for judging. It needs to have:

Last Friday, I wondered aloud whether the voice issues with Rainbow Six would be resolved before I quit playing the game altogether. Well, it didn't take long - I'm done.

Just a reminder that the last day to purchase tickets for the Child’s Play charity dinner and auction is Thursday. New items for the auction are coming in every day. I wanted to let you all know that we’ll have items in all different price ranges. I know last year we talked about items going for ten and twenty thousand dollars. Trust me when I tell you that you can come with significantly less than that and walk out with something cool. Even if you don’t want to bid on anything it’s a really fun event to watch. Either way, Thursday is the last day to get your tickets.

To the great delight of a vocal percentage of the readership, Div has returned. Briefly. Now he can return to attic storage, there to languish in oak, resting in close proximity to my Spelling Bee medals and a black baseball mitt (unused).

Since we launched so many new products this week I just wanted to draw your attention to the store one more time. Here’s a look at our new batch of shirts.

I realize I haven’t talked much recently about the Penny Arcade Alliance over on Dark Iron. That’s not because they aren’t still out there slaughtering Horde. It’s just that with all the console games that hit recently I haven’t had time to join them.

I've tormented my cohort with it, and now I will torture the readership: Bookworm Adventures is linguaphile crack, and games with much larger budgets have been losing to it daily since its release. Describing my cavern of amassed lexical artifacts might take weeks, but let me say that the collection is so comprehensive, so robust, and so well-organized that I'm thinking about charging admission.

I just wanted to mention two Child's Play related items. First the
Minibosses have an eBay auction up that benefits CP. It's essentially
a Minnibosses gift pack full of CD's, posters,shirts and whatever else
they can cram in there. Please hit the link for their auction and
remember it's all for Charity.

Second the deadline to purchase tickets for the Child's Play charity
dinner and auction is approaching. We'll be closing ticket sales next
week. If you want to go and you haven't purchased your ticket yet
now is the time.

Also please take some time today to check out our list of hospitals
this year. If you haven't picked anything up yet please give it some
thought. It might just be a couple coloring books or even a package of
batteries. Trust me when I tell you that anything, no matter what it
is will be very much appreciated by these hospitals. Don't think that
just becasue you can't get the kids a PS3 you can't help. Some simple
things like Playdough actually need to be thrown away after each use.
Certain items that the kids like to play with collect germs and can
only be used once. They can never have too many containers of the
stuff. Or too many batteries for that matter. Or coloring books or
markers. Believe me when I tell you that you could spend five dollars
and really make a difference.

-Gabe out

(The weather here is pretty screwed up, slush and ice (with a chance of late afternoon blood) which kept us both home today.  In Spokane, there would be gravel out and other public safety measures, but when snow falls over on this side of the state people don't see it as weather, it's seen as a portent - evidence of an angry pantheon.  A single snowflake will fall on their windshield, and they will immediately swerve their SUV into a truck hauling fuel.  Faced with miles of ice and idiots between his home and work (and a reported eight hour commute), Gabe chose to hole up in Fort Krahulik, which means no tablet and no scanner.  I really like the result.)   

We did a really awesome project (can I say it’s awesome, is that okay?) for Wired magazine. You can either go pick up the most recent issue and read it there or check it out on their site. They asked us to do a piece for them handicapping all three of the next generation systems. We tried to be as fair as we could and hopefully you’ll get a kick out of it.

So the big news today, in the world of web comics at least is that PvP is getting itself animated. Scott posted the news along with a little teaser over on his site. He’s actually writing the entire thing with the help of Kris Straub. I was a big fan of the old Blamimations they did together and I’ve told them both whenever possible that they needed to collaborate more. I make jokes when I’m uncomfortable and it just so happens I have issues with anxiety so I’m essentially uncomfortable all day. That means I spend a lot of my time making jokes. When Scott and Kris were up here visiting I hardly said a word. They’re just too funny and they’re always on. You just can’t compete with them, all you can do is laugh.