As media enthusiasts on the fringe of the sensible, we’re all no doubt familiar with Monster Cable. They have crafted a niche for themselves as a producer of luxury wire, spooking consumers with grave proclamations regarding “attenuation” and “dirty power.” The copy on the back always tends to lay it on a bit thick, conferring an almost totemic quality to these strands which are, it would appear, humanity’s last bulwark versus nebulous evil. He was just starting to get into home theater when we lived together, and he’d assure me that he was sensitive to the minute fibrillations of audio purity provided by substandard cabling. When he picked up the Monster Cable surge protector yesterday, I had to act.
People are always telling me that this strip or that strip or this newspost or whatever is the last thing they’re ever going to read on the site, and they’ve got all these reasons and shit for why that would be the case. I don’t know if they thought we were dating, or what, but please don’t feel the need to tell me everything you are doing or not doing. I got a great one Friday that said that we were so “big” now that we didn’t need the readers. Nevermind that you’re “big” directly in proportion to your readers, but his mail was a fractured adventure of misplaced aggression and clumsy logic so this point in particular is really the least of his problems. I honestly didn’t know what he was talking about, anyway. We did this when we had absolutely no readers, readership has never been our purpose, which is why I’ve always assumed we were so successful at attracting it. It’s an accident. And besides, I think the deal you and I have is pretty good! You can come here three times a week and read stuff if you want to. If you stop liking it, I see no reason to prostrate myself before you. Go somewhere else.
Apparently the Xbox Live thing Gabe was talking about made people mad. The presumption of many mails we received is that we are now performing some sort of penis-related service on Microsoft, because we’d rather people use unadulterated machines on Live. Believe you me, I’m a nutcase about DRM, Palladium, all that shit, and that’s not what this is about. Playing on Xbox Live isn’t some Constitutional fucking right, it’s a service whose quality cannot be guaranteed without strict conformity on the client.
Back to cock sucking, though.
Nevermind that we thrashed the Goddamn thing for an entire year when it didn’t live up to our expectations and sported a sort of tepid exclusive library. I’m as shocked as the next guy, but Live and even the Xbox - both 1.0 products - have really shaped up to be something great, and if that is the case, you can be assured that we’re going to say something about it. When I read these mails, I entertain the fact that you may be right when you say that I crave corporate prong. Then I say, “No, it’s not the prong I crave, it’s something else, I really like games, and if I think people should know about something good then I will tell them.” I give you the benefit of the doubt when you write, and it is very natural for me to question my actions because I’ve always found myself loathsome, like a dog’s corpse. The next time you decide to crank up that Fancy Machine and write me some mail, why not simply return the favor? Zip up those pants, and ask yourself: Am I a fucking crybaby? Can I imagine a universe where I might be wrong?
(CW)TB out.
put me to the test
I love to play video games and so I have invested a lot of time and money in making sure that I have a kick ass place to play these videogames. While working at Circuit City I had the ability to purchase all kinds of great stuff at an amazing discount. As I started to collect more and more components I realized that I enjoyed hooking up these devices nearly as much as I enjoyed actually using them. I can spend hours behind my television re-wiring speakers and untangling cables. When something stops working I get absolutely giddy because I know that it will require I get back there and start checking those connections. If it’s a really bad problem I may even have to make a run to the store to purchase a new cable!
I got hooked on Monster when I worked at Circuit City. I remember the Monster Cable rep came to our store to give all the employees a lesson on the intricacies of A/V cables. I was shocked at what I heard. Dirty power!? Fluctuations in signal strength!? Interference from UM rays!? I wanted to jump out of my chair and race home right then. I pictured all my delicate equipment sitting there, connected with substandard cables. Whenever it got slow in the store I’d wander over to the audio and video departments and gaze longingly at all the different kinds of cables Monster offered. I’d start up innocent conversations with the salespeople asking about the merits of this type of shielding or that kind of coating. “Oh, so I need the double twist interlocking nitrogen injected plastic foil if I really want to get the most out of my speakers.” I had it bad. Whenever I could afford it I’d purchase one. An RCA cable here some speaker wire there. It wasn’t much but it was better than nothing. I’d replace my old S-video cable with the new Monster one and drop in a DVD. I’d stare at the screen convinced of the quality difference. “How did I ever watch DVD’s without Monster cable?” I’d ask myself.
Tycho likes to make fun of me over my obsession with Monster but I know for a fact that I am not alone in this. I know that I am not the only person who will lay awake at night and silently rewire his system in his head. I know that there are other people out there reading this right now who won’t pay fifty dollars for a shirt but have no problem dropping eighty on a cable. I am a cable junky and I’m not ashamed of it. I don’t even try to hide it from Tycho anymore. He called me yesterday to write the comic and I told him I had just gotten a new coaxial audio cable. “Should I call you back in 20?” He asked. “Better make it an hour, I got a new surge protector too.”
-Gabe out
Over the next couple of months a lot of you will probably be heading home to spend some time with your family. A lot of you will probably also be dragging a video game system along with you in order to dull the pain. I know I will be making the trip back to Spokane come December and my Xbox and my Cube will be making the trip with me. I wanted to point you towards LASR Accessories. They make these new backpacks for hauling your system around. I have a carrying case right now for my Cube but it only holds the Cube and one controller. These backpacks actually have space for all your games and cables and whatnot. The other really cool thing is that you don’t have to take the system out of the backpack. The wires and everything just pop out the sides letting you play right out of the bag. Anyway I got one and it’s pretty fucking cool. If you need to take a system someplace you should check them out.
A lot of you may also be taking your Game Boy Advance with you. Well I can help you out there too, but not in a carrying case sort of way. I am happy to introduce to you the brand new Penny Arcade GBA skins! These skins are printed on vinyl film and backed with a removable adhesive. Basically you can stick them on and take them off whenever you want. This first batch of Skins includes three designs each one more…um…designy then the last.
Be sure and check out gbaMOD.com for other cool skins. Also let me know if this is the kind of thing you’d like to see more of in the future.
-Gabe out
There was this bowling alley on my way home from Salk middle school called Diamond Bowl, and they always had pretty good taste in games. over the years I played a lot of Xenophobe and Xybots there, as you can well imagine - the second Spy Hunter wasn’t a bad way to spend an afternoon, either. But I always came back to their battered Black Tiger and Rygar machines, two action platformers with an insatiable thirst for my money.
Almost everything else about each game is different, but both of their protagonists swing a dangerous chain thingy - a sort of angry yo-yo. I’ve read such good things about the modern update to Rygar that I think I may have to pick that one up.
(CW)TB
Since posting the pictures of the GBA skins I have gotten over a dozen e-mails from people asking what the hell Over Easy is and why they have never heard of it. Sometimes I feel like I mention shit too much and that you guys are probably sick of hearing about it. It seems like no matter how often I talk about OE though there are still people who seem to miss it. So here is one more quick post about it.
Over Easy is a full color comic book being distributed one page per month to members of Club Penny Arcade. It takes the characters Gabe and Tycho and drops them into the roles of two hard boiled police officers in our homage to Hong Kong action movies and all things John Woo. The first two pages were sent out last month and this month page three will be sent out. For all the details on joining Club PA each month just hit this page.
And yes you can expect more Carboard Tube Samurai in the future.
-Gabe out
I hope IGN won’t be mad that I copied this bit from their Insider review, but Aaron Boulding said something very true and I want to recognize it.
“The hardcore gamers are probably already getting their mech on, but for the rest of the gaming population out there, I’d say go in with three of your friends to get this game and take turns playing through it. That would be $50 well spent.”
Yes! He is describing the only sensible approach to Steel Battalion. This is exactly the way we did it, and we filled out the price with trade-ins on shit we were done with. It’s very difficult to quantify what 200 dollars worth of gaming would look like, so why even expose yourself to that kind of philosophical issue?
(CW)TB
