I didn't know how Gabe was going to introduce his bit, but we were indeed able to scam our way into this event. It was accompanied by a rich torrent of media that you have probably been availing yourself of at news sites. The event itself is local, I mean, it's literally about ten minutes from my apartment, so their investment getting us there really is low to nonexistant. I drove my own car. I wonder if, upon reading what I have to say, they'll feel like they got their money's worth.

I have to say that I came away from E3 with absolutely no idea what the hell Nintendo was trying to do with the DS. What I saw there made no sense to me. After spending all afternoon with the DS I feel like I understand it a little bit better now. If nothing else I see potential in the device now that I did not see a few months ago.

Since we live in Seattle we were able to sneak into the Nintendo Gamer's Summit today. Essentially it's an event where Nintendo shows off all their new stuff to select members of the media. Tycho and I were both really excited to finally get our hands on a DS. Check back today and tomorrow for our impressions from the summit.

I keep myself fairly well abreast of things like this, but the fact that Microsoft is finally going to sell the Media Center version of their operating system caught me completely by surprise. Feel free to hit up this preview of it over at Game PC, if you're curious - I've used the current version, and found it more than pleasant. Of course, as I mentioned in the "first post," I've already got a Tivo that does pretty much everything I need in a device like that. I might consider one of them fancy DVD Tivos, or "TeeVeeDees" as I have heard them called, but that's about it.

For his birthday a couple years ago, I bit the bullet and bought Gabe a Tivo. I did this because, to a very large extent, the parameters of his life were defined by which shows came on at what times. Certainly being able to manage your stable of programs is a positive, humane development - but the main reason I have it is so I can skip commercials. Just before I obtained one of the devices myself, I could be expected to scream with all my vigor at the antics which lurk between show segments. It was essentially a Two Minutes Hate, except where the traitor Goldstein might have been projected I instead railed against Arby's vile, creatively inert Oven Mitt.

Nintendo was nice enough to send us three copies of Pikmin to give away. Well, the truth is that they gave us four copies, but Robert took one. I bought it when it came out, and they greatly diminished the elements (read: time limits) that obscured my enjoyment of the first one. Would you like a copy? The procedure really is ridiculously simple.

There is, I am told, some kind of bullshit where human beings are unable to see the comic. Until I hear that we don't have this problem anymore, I'll post links to the raw file. A thousand apologies.

We did not need to invent something ridiculous about Shadow Hearts: Covenant to prime it for inclusion in the site, that's true - but the game actually knows how ridiculous it is pretty much all the time, and it's right there with you, laughing along. World War 1 era superheroes who turn into bats and steal people's mailboxes.

Since it’s right by my house and I love mc chris, I’m gonna head over to the comic stop at 5:00 as well. If you’re interested in a free sketch or you just want to talk about how awesome Shadow Hearts is, come on by.

mc chris, of Fett's Vette fame, will be hanging out up at the Comic Stop up in Lynnwood. He will sign (and sell) his award winning compact discs at 5:00pm, right here:

I’m sorry I haven’t had time to post more, but I’m fucking hooked on Shadow Hearts Covenant. It seems like no one wants to make a turn based RPG anymore. I’m not sure who decided that from now on some bullshit computer AI should control all the extra members of my party. Star Ocean, Tales of Symphonia and the upcoming FFXII all do it though. I’ve been depressed for months after playing FFXII at E3. I thought that I might never play an epic turn based RPG again. Thank Christ for Aruze and Midway. We’ll talk more about Shadow Hearts I’m sure but right now I just want to get back to my save game.

I sometimes hear it said that our comics are nonsensical forays without the post, which is a charge I really don't care about. It's not true most of the time. If it were, the comic would look something like this.

People who are fanatically devoted to eviscerating miscreants should investigate Raven's X-Men: Legends. If they are unable to bring the full four players to bear, however, they need to be prepared for the fact that sometimes Cyclops is going to bite it and it's not my fault. Bragging about your full retinue isn't going to help us battle the Brotherhood of Evil Fucking Mutants. That breaks unit cohesion, man. And units need that shit.

Here they are. I'll talk about them more later, but I wanted to give you night owls something to chew on.

I apologize if I made it seem like we did not want the help of the Buzzcomix community. I understand there are quite a few people over there that would like to help and are not total assholes. I respect the fact that some of the members there are genuinely interested in helping us with Child’s Play 2004 and I appreciate that. The stuff that kid was spouting was just too funny not to post. I’m also sorry we broke your website.

I got a ton of mail from people asking if we need volunteers for Child’s Play 2004. If certain hospitals find themselves overwhelmed with donations and need help sorting through them we may put the word out for readers in that area to help. Unloading all the toys is a big job and if a hospital needs help we’ll let you know.