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Tycho

While my own gaming equipment was in disarray this weekend, I would take any opportunity to contact Gabe and see how he was progressing in Apex and Dark Cloud 2.  It sounds as though he more than took up the slack - Gabir, his company in Apex, apparently has so many individual employees they needed to expand the facility several times.  It is, I am told, the racing game one plays in heaven.

Hearing about Dark Cloud 2 made me long for it.  I had read many reviews trying to come to a decision about the game, and I must have missed the one that talked in detail about the inventions system.  You have a camera you can use to (pokemon) snap pictures of random objects in the environment, and combining three of these thing is the way to achieve some of the better items.  He is very proud of his Aquarium, for example.  To facilitate this newfound vocation, Gabriel has apparently become quite the shutterbug - risking life and limb in some Mutual of Omaha type shit to get shots of dangerous monsters in their natural habitat.

I don’t doubt that moving with geeks always shares certain characteristics.  The comparisons to Tetris, and indeed, the humming in unison of the Tetris tune.  In a single truckload, Porkfry and Doc were able to fit an entertainment center, a couch, and a desk that I had built inside the apartment that was nearly impossible to get out.  They referred to this as “rolling a natural 20,” which makes them huge fucking dorks, but then I take them to task for their liberal reading of the the Player’s Handbook.  Because they had ample time, no penalty for failure, and were not harried by fierce orcs, they could make attempts until they got it right - making it more akin to “Taking Twenty,” as shown on page 62 of the PHB.  Someone else came over and argued this as well while my things waited silently in the car.  They don’t care when they get in there, they’re things.

When I set up my laptop in the new place, I saw a wireless access point called “erik_net” that I hoped to ride to freedom.  I had an elaborate scheme wherein I would mummify my apartment in cable in order to share these ill-gotten gains to every device I had.  I would be the Packet King of North Fremont.  It turns out that I had little to no actual signal from the paltry “erik_net” which dashed my hopes.  I held the cables, the fallow bandwidth they contained, and wept.  No Charge saved my ass again, in fact, they brought you this.  It’s a free ISP on this side of Washington State that is pretty handy to keep on laptops and the like.  I have NetZero on here as well for when I leave the state, but I can count the number of times I do that per year on one hand and have fingers left over.  Shit, I can count that on just my ears.

I want to caution you about staying in a bathroom for around an hour cleaning the ceilings with bleach.  It might seem like fun, but over that period toxic chlorine fumes excavate the most tender parts of your brain.  These little nooks are nice for keeping things like keys or movie tickets, but when you try to carry on a conversation later you can only say things like “Mornum” and “Hoong” - these are sounds which have no definition in my language.

(CW)TB out.

earthcrusher

Gabe

It’s true that I have become something of a shutter bug. In fact I have probably invested way too much time in the photography/invention portion of Dark Cloud 2. Technically I’ve poured about five or six hours into the game and I’ve only just left the sewers. I can see a more focused player reaching the same place in maybe an hour. The sad part is that I have almost nothing to show for my time. My long hours of picture snapping have yielded very few actual inventions. I spend most of my time trying to combine pumpkins, trees and the sun in the hopes of inviting some kind of super pumpkin tree. That has yet to pan out.

Apex really came out of nowhere for us. I had never even heard of the game until the first reviews started coming in. When I saw a racing game getting high scores from almost every major site I decided I should probably check it out. And thank God I did, Apex might as well be called Ridge Racer 5. Yeah, Yeah I know there actually was a Ridge Racer 5 but it sucked and I prefer to pretend it never happened. Apex is a perfect sequel to Ridge Racer 4. The RPG elements introduced in that game are pushed even further in Apex. The idea behind it’s story mode is actually to develop your own brand of cars and grow your company. You start out with a filthy old garage and a mechanic. The better you race the more attention your company gets and the more cars you will sell. As your company grows your tiny garage becomes a giant factory packed full of employees and state of the art equipment. I’ve heard that Apex got a fairly small release and that it’s become pretty hard to find. If that’s the case it’s unfortunate because this game is fucking great. Do yourself a favor and try to find a copy of it, you won’t be disappointed.

There is a new Hook Up available. Equal parts Audiophile and Ladies man Stormy dishes out his usual blend of rock solid advice and boob analogies. I think he’s just swell. 

Thanks to Ramius for all his hard work on the Forums. After a few months of being down they are back and better than ever. Please don’t post any pictures of poop.

-Gabe out

Gabe

Oh, and page 5 of Over Easy will be available this month. I have just been super busy is with other stuff and it’s taking longer than I thought. My goal is to finish it by Wednesday and start sending it out to club PA members at the end of the week. Sorry it’s so late.

-Gabe out

Gabe

I have gotten a lot of questions about this so I figured I would address it here. Lot’s of you want to jump into club PA and see Over Easy but you want to see the pages you missed.

Well it’s been five months since we started it so I figure now is a good spot to let people catch up. If you donate to club PA in February you will get all five pages of OE.

I also wanted to take a moment to say thank you to all of you who have supported us via Club PA since its inception. Your support has allowed us to do what we’ve always wanted to do. So, yeah…Thanks. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that we really appreciate it.

-Gabe out

Gabe

I set up a little poll in the forum just now. I’d appreciate it if you could all go check it out and leave some feedback. It’s an issue Tycho and I have been wrestling with since we started the site and we’d like to know what you all think.

-Gabe out

***UPDATE!***

Well it looks like I just Wanged my own forum.

-Gabe out

Tycho

That’s not even the standard nomenclature.

(CW)TB