This has got to be the most exciting pre-E3 news I’ve read yet. SNK is back and they are going to be developing games for the current crop of systems. There is even mention of a 3D Metal Slug game in the article. If you would like to meet me at E3 I will be in booth # 3008, drooling all over myself and blubbering like a fan boy.

I have never been able to repress my affection for Howard Phillips Lovecraft, whose verbosity is matched only by his ability to use a lot of words.

We are buying a new car today. Buying cars is always very stressful for me. Obviously the money thing is one side of it but it’s also just really confusing. I honestly understand very little about the process. There are always lots of papers to sign and lots of percentages get thrown around. Then you have to say "no" like twelve times when they try and get you to buy the extended warranty and the scotch guard and the life time oil change and the plasma injector and the special coating that keeps harmful gamma rays from boiling your brain inside your skull like a crock-pot full of bubbling chili.

I know we're being all dour today and pondering ramifications, so I'll make this quick: The new Phantasy Star Online game Sega just announced is a turn-based, cooperative, multiplayer card battle game!

We're thinking about a new running gag where we just get sued all the time and have to take the strip down.

After that Neo Geo rant I started feeling nostalgic so I hit Ebay and checked some auctions. My Neo-Geo collection is pretty much complete as far as I am concerned except for a few titles. I still would like to get my hands on Sengoku 3 and Metal Slug 3 home carts. I would also like a Mark of the Wolves MVS or AES cart. I can’t see myself getting these anytime soon as a couple hundred bucks is just way to much to spend on a videogame. I tried getting a MoTW cart a few years ago from NCSX and they sent me a defective one. I returned it and they sent another defective one. I finally just got my money back. Anyway I was looking at MVS carts and happened to see this auction. See MVS games never came with real boxes. They are for an arcade machine so they just came in cardboard boxes that arcade operators would throw away as soon as they could. Now that people are collecting these games though they wanted a nice way to store them and so a guy came up with Shock Boxes. All kinds of people make inserts for these boxes, there are hundreds and hundreds of inserts and a couple years ago I even made a couple for my own collection and posted them on a few Neo fan sites. Well if you look at the Shock Box that this MoTW MVS cart comes with the guy is using the insert I designed.

It still looks like a Webby might be in our future. We are the leading write in for a few different categories. Humor, Games and Netart are the ones I think we probably fit into the best. Voting continues into next month so hopefully we can maintain our lead in those categories.

There are parts of this dream that make no sense to me and then there are parts that are fairly obvious. It is no surprise that I am excited about SWG for example. Some people though have asked why in the hell I would want it to come out on the Neo. Well I don't. I think the reason the Neo is in the dream is because I have spent a lot of time thinking about SNK vs. Capcom: Chaos lately. In case you have not been following this game it's a vs. style fighter made by Playmore (SNK) for the Neo-Geo hradware. Playmore just released some new info about it the other day. Here are the character rosters for both the SNK and Capcom sides.

We are apparently experiencing some isses with the DNS for the site, which is making it so about half of the world can't see it. I think it's marvelous, with fewer readers we should regain our indie patina in no time.

You may already know Kwip (Of NeenerNeener fame), but if not, this is a perfect time to acquaint yourself. Hit up the impassioned oratory over at his site, and see if there is any way you can help on this MS walk thing. If you do, send a mail to the ClubPA account and let me know. God only knows what you'll end up with.

The dream, as related here, is completely accurate. But I would like to emphasize that we know absolutely nothing about playing the game, and indeed, we are not actively playing it. We are not intrigued by the unprecedented crafting options, nor do we find the rich palette of social options titillating. We certainly haven't signed some sort of Non-Disclosure Agreement related to it, if that's what you mean.

I can't possibly respond to this much mail, I'm simply not capable of it.

There is a pretty big thread over at Slashdot regarding our current situation with American Greetings. There is lots of interesting stuff being discussed over there as usual. Also there is a petition (a poorly spelled one) to Boycott everything American Greetings makes. Like any mega corporation though AG actually makes quite a bit of shit besides greeting cards. Trying to avoid their every product would actually I think prove rather difficult. Someone at Slashdot suggested not purchasing American Greetings cards for Mother's day and I think that is pretty smart. Between the two geek powerhouses that are PA and /. I think this would actually have some effect. I mean we are talking about hundreds of thousands of geeks not purchasing cards from them on one of their biggest days. Something to think about.

I assume by now you have all seen the screen shots from Rogue Squadron III over at Gamers.com.

Gabriel has an affection with older characters we've made that, to me at least, smacks of a fascination with continuity. Clearly, events like the recent Cardboard and Steel show that continuity can be trained and mastered - acceptable, under controlled laboratory conditions. If it were up to him, it would be Charles this, Frank that, etc. In short, it would be the anarchy which is his stock and trade.

We are, of course, talking to our lawyer about all this stuff. Readers have referred us to many sources in an effort to clarify our position legally, sites like Chilling Effects act as clearing houses for data useful in situations such as this. Also, interesting cases have been brought to our attention - for example, Aqua's song "Barbie Girl" was contested by Mattel, and Aqua still came out on top (as it were). In darker news, Matt from MacHall send this interesting bit - check page 3, "Dr. Seuss Enterprises Vs. Penguin Books." To my mind, that precedent doesn't mean anything good for us.