Except for (perhaps) Jesus Christ, no birthday in history is accompanied by as much fanfare as Gabe's. He's incorrigible. It's fucking August, and already I can't wait for his special day to come and go, mostly go. We haven't decided whether this strip will inspire an ill-advised foray into treacherous Continuity, but I thought it proper to warn you in advance.

So, Oz is essentially a soap opera about domination, for men. It's great!

All I have for you today are a few quick updates.

Got a couple movies.

Our recent arcade experience was absolutely bewildering.

It's like this. Batjew is in the process of losing his job. We need to find Batjew - a.k.a. Alexander Goldstein - some gainful employment, and we need to find it right away. At his current rate of Altoid consumption, we project that he will burn through his savings in two weeks, and that's where you come in. He's up in Vancouver, B.C., he has a host of IT skills, and he takes this sort of thing very seriously. If you need somebody in Vancouver, or you're in the market anywhere for a remote tech to telecommute, I think we may have your man. Check out the resume, drop him a line, and let's do this thing.

I just finished some new Warcraft 3 fan art and though I’d share it with all of you. I do hope you enjoy it.

The two items that seemed to pop up this week in my mail over and over again were the sale of Vivendi's games division and the map hack for Warcraft 3. Many of you were upset that Blizzard seemed unwilling or unable to deal with the map hack. Just as I was starting to agree with you they came out and made an official announcement about it on Wednesday. Apparently anyone caught using the hack will have their CD key banned. I understand that all they would need to do is go out and purchase another copy of the game but I still think it's a good deterrent. I honestly don't know if I have ever played against someone using the hack. I'd like to think that my many losses could be attributed to some form of treachery by the other player rather than my own incompetence. Blizzard has asked that you send in any replays in which you feel like you may have been the victim of one of these unscrupulous cheaters. After careful study of my own library of replays I could find no evidence of a hack that turns off fog of war. However I did find something even more dangerous. There appears to be an even more prevalent hack that lets people utilize a highly streamlined build order, intelligent troop configurations and strategic hero management to totally destroy my puny forces. Blizzard really needs to do something about this if you ask me.

Listen up, Empire Interactive, because I'm only going to say this once: "Ghost Master" is the stupidest fucking name for a game that I have ever heard.

There are many things to discuss about today's strip.

Gabe was gone at the time, but a guy from Quicksilver came by - Quicksilver, you know. Master of Orion III. We had just set a guy up with a poster, and as he was leaving he asked us if we were looking forward to Master of Orion III. What a stupid question, I thought. That's like asking if you're looking forward to a blowjob.

I can't say I recommend driving from San Diego to Seattle in one shot. We left at around 9:00 am on Monday and got home around 7:00 am on Tuesday. It's great to be home but I'm still pretty out of it. The things that I can remember about the Comic Con are really cool though.

Bioware's David Chan delivered his second article for our Industry section, which discusses some of the tribulations unique to the audio profession. I thought it was excellent.

The longer I stay away from home, the greater the possibility of a psychotic break. I have lost my mind on three separate occasions, so I am fairly well acquainted with the sensation. I do not doubt that another day out would have landed me an extended stay at Chez Crazy.

Okay, the strip is up now, for reals. Sorry about the delay, we pulled an all nighter and did the drive back from San Diego in one go.

A new comic is available - being an exact transcription of their conversation, it should give you some ideas about the level of discourse these two typically share. I'm trying to figure out why I can't upload the graphic for today's strip - if you can't see it, please stop by later today when I've had some help getting it going.