Literally the only thing I find unpleasant about Steam is the fact that now, even as we speak, there is a copy of Half-Life 2 on my machine that I can't fondle with vigor. I actually watched the completion bar on the pre-load last night, and it was a pain like being branded. I played plenty of Counter-Strike: Source last night to take the edge off, you know, because it uses the same engine, but it's hard to escape the notion that your game is locked up in the hoosegow and that heroics may be required.

As regards today's strip, Gabe waltzes in with startling revelations about Shadow Hearts nearly every day. He found the Giurnan metablade, which reaps a harvest of flesh. Oh look, it's the Steel Womb, which renders the wearer impervious to damage. Time was you could rely on a man not to load the save between sessions. Nowadays, every time we load it up there's some complete stranger in the party and everyone's pimped out with legendary artifacts.

I apologize for the lack of sketch dumps lately. Things have been pretty crazy since the baby. I do have something new to show you though. We had originally planned on doing a story called Sand for a future edition of Flight. It was essentially a techno western. Then we read Kazu’s totally fucking incredible Daisy Kutter and realized the techno western was already in much more competent hands. So we sat down and tried to come up with something new. What we came up with is Automata.

There's a lot to read in these Pikmin 2 entries! I started this weekend, but it's taking some time to get through. I'll keep on keeping on, winners announced Friday at the latest.

It's almost midnight, so if I want even a passing chance at not being a liar I'd better crack out that Third Age thing.

Jesus Christ, sometimes I get the hiccups. I don't get them on purpose.

3 hours and 2000 entries later, someone came up with the correct number which was 874. I'll be sending a package of goodies out to Neil Horibe, who was the first to guess it at 1:51 pm. Thanks to everyone who entered. We'll have to do more of this sort of thing in the future.

Here are some quick thoughts about a few of the other DS games I checked out.

Here are some quick thoughts about a few of the other DS games I checked out.

Gamespot went live with their preview of Irrational's spiritual successor to System Shock 2, Bioshock. I just saw it was up, I haven't even read it yet. Here I go.

One never knows if they should be forthcoming regarding their fetishes, outside of some anonymous room in IRC or in the protected reserve of a convention exclusively for enthusiasts. I'm beyond protestations of normality at this point. I will triumphantly open my trenchcoat, and reveal my secret products: I think Myst is about as good as it gets.

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.