We’ll be attending Foolscap VII this weekend in Bellevue. We’ve never been to a convention like this so we’re a little bit nervous. We’re guests of honor this year along with Harlan Ellison which blows my mind. Anyway if you’d like to come out and see us we’ll be on some fun panels. On Saturday we’ll actually be re-creating our “how to draw cartoons” lesson that was such a big hit with the third graders a few months back. We’ll be there Friday and Saturday but unfortunately not Sunday since that is my birthday. So if you are in the area I hope you’ll come see us.

When I was talking to the Demiurge cats, one of them mentioned that there was some co-op levels in the new Brothers In Arms that took place from a German perspective. I've been wondering when someone would tackle it, and I think Gearbox is up to it.

I love the entire idea of preloading. Even though I'm not actively engaged in the process, I somehow feel more productive. It's like watching those home renovation shows. When that data arrives, I'll feel as though I've had a full day.

I - we - would be lying if we said that speaking where we are speaking is not intimidating. We walked through a kind of hive where students formicate, and I am told this honeycombed structure is called the East Campus. It was unbelievably hot throughout, and if we had been at any other school I'd have said there were ventilation concerns. Given the location, it seems more likely that some rogue intellect had managed to yoke geothermal power.

We're "speaking" at M.I.T. on Friday, at 5pm. More information is available here.

Penny Arcade reader and amazing human Christian Boggs deserves a digital pat on the back for purchasing the original artwork I had on eBay. His extraordinarily generous donation of $8700 will be going directly to the Red Cross.

This weekend's Massachusetts adventures will be recorded in something approaching real-time thanks to the magic of Sketch-o-Vision. In return, all we ask is that you play Burnout on the system of your choice until your hands cramp permanently into useless claws.

Advent Children did arrive, just as he suggested, and clad only in a masterfully constructed fansub we dove headfirst into a liquid pool of concentrated fanservice.

You might remember that a couple weeks ago I auctioned off some original artwork on eBay with the intention of giving all the money to the Red Cross. eBay had a system in place to make it easy for sellers like myself to do exactly that and so I took advantage of it. This required me to create and account using their missionfish program. According to what I read this was a system that guaranteed the money went to the charity listed. I assumed that meant that when the winner paid for the auction he paid through missionfish and I never even saw the money.

Thanks to everyone who wrote in to wish Gabe a happy Birthday. As you can see he hit the cake pretty hard. I’d imagine that from now on, any day that he doesn’t open a million presents and then dive face first into a chocolate cake before taking a nap will seem boring.

Jane and Ryan over at 1up put together a kind of PAX shrine, and I hardly know what to say. It's practically an act of worship, I hope the show was as entertaining as they made it look.

You can talk to me about naming my character when you don’t have a vagina.

To me, Dudefella is not a name that says "epic adventure."

Things on Dark Iron continue to be awesome. Our epic battle against the PvP guilds is a real blast. The question of “ganking” has come up quite often in the forums and I just wanted to share my two cents on the topic.

It was only a matter of time before I contracted some kind of illness, I suppose. Doing battle with The Horde until three already depletes a man, but when you meet thousands of people over the course of a weekend somebody there is a carrier. I'm currently flanking the condition with barely substantiated science and folk remedies of questionable efficacy.

Today is little Gabe’s Birthday as well as the anniversary of the launch of the Dreamcast. Coincidence? I think not. He’s one year old today and that completely blows me away. It seems like it was just a couple days ago that I was writing this post about his birth.