Penny Arcade

I’d say it’s better than even odds you’ve seen the story, either at VE or Slashdot.  The long and short of it is that someone said they liked a couple Nintendo games in their SuicideGirls profile - and, in a parody of the reasonable universe, lawyers bared their teeth.  I have a hunch we’re talking about some kind of perverted spider application, an automated process with a bottomless appetite for filth, but it’s funny to think tracking down meaningless infractions like this is some guy’s fucking job.

I guess I should say a few things in advance of this discussion.  SuicideGirls is a site where, among other things, girls take off their clothes.  I’m not saying you should go there or not go there.  They’ve asked to advertise here before, and while I don’t have any great qualm with titillating media I didn’t know if it was the best match for the site.  It may be that my scheme for rating pornography has been damaged by the Internet, but the site is actually pretty tasteful compared to other sites I have subscribed to, many of which are filmed in barns. 

Now, with the caveat out of the way, I am not without reason:  I can understand why Nintendo as a corporate entity might not want their juggernaut brands associated with teen coochie.  And indeed, if we were talking about photosets with explicit connections to their brands I would be less likely to ridicule them for it.  I can even envision a scenario where a girl might have a Mario tattoo or something, and they might have something legitimate to say in that case, but honestly now I’m just indulging some kind of fantasy.   

At this point, I don’t care if it was a spider or some asshole at a terminal somewhere.  When we did our Strawberry Shortcake comic, I was able to come to terms with the fact that there was an interpretation of my country’s laws that prohibited what we had done.  I didn’t like it, but I could connect the dots and we relented.  This, on the other hand, is merely stupid and evil.  For better or worse, their company is built on these ancient, perennial brands that sprout up again on each new system.  The reason it works is only partially because they tend to make excellent games - they deal gently with those classics, modernizing what they need, and somehow manage to retain a sense of wonder.  But Nintendo’s success hinges on the fact that their characters have become cultural icons - and being cultural icons means that we as gamers take an ownership in those franchises.  They’re a part of our language and, if you’re the sort of person who reads Penny arcade, your culture.   

It’s not legal ownership, no - but we’re heavily invested in those characters.  Which I guess is a crime. 

Update:  Or, maybe it’s not.  Someone at Nintendo figured out this was stupid - BoingBoing has the letter they sent out. 

(CW)TB out.

cobwebs fall on an old skipping record

Just to let you know - you can’t very well have a Halloween strip the day after, it just wouldn’t do.  So, when it’s up on Sunday, this link will summon it from the deep.

Post might be up reg’lar time, but I’ll get it in there early if I can swing it.

(CW)TB

Yesterday’s spect…  spooktacular can be viewed here.

The extent to which the two lights on my DSL modem have dominated my life is pretty striking.  As I mentioned last Friday, Brenna and I moved into a house, which has been such a trying ordeal that it deserves its own space altogether for the telling and may even become a weekend ritual.  In any case, the dislocation one inherently feels when moving is even more intense when easily half your social and leisure time relies upon the plane of pure data.  I feel like an apparition without it, a core issue which I guess might worry me if I weren’t already so distraught about the corollaries.   

Each morning I would squeak down the stairs, not even turning the light on in the dungeon where all of my technology now dwells, and look in the direction I knew the modem to be.  There was a gap between the light for power and the light for the LAN connection which made it look somewhat toothless, and I would gaze into this mouth trying to wish those lights on.  Guild Wars was coming up, and there was only one weekend to play it.  I’d been getting back together with my All-Star Crew to execute fools in cs_office, the long hallway is my domain, and it made me sick to think that in my absence CT’s would penetrate it and gain access to our critical hostages - the same hostages that would ultimately guarantee our escape.  I was jeopardizing the entire operation.           

And what of my news?  Forced to generate my own opinions regarding current events, I would soon deviate from political orthodoxy.  The trips downstairs ceased having that Christmas morning feeling.  The psychic and spiritual weight of the journey was like the casket of a dear friend, the implications as heavy as the burden.  Unable to steal new music, I would fall into a sonic holding pattern around the last refuge - ancient compact discs, like the ambiguous religious icons of a primitive and ignorant age.  I would hold my knees and rock gently to Helmet’s Aftertaste.  It would usher me into death, like Charon.

With a heavy heart I prepared to verify the foregone conclusion.  The third light, past power, past diagnostic, the DSL light, felt a packet move.  From my vantage point, the modem appeared to wink.     

New topic.

I never know if I’m being a bad citizen or a good host when I avoid discussing politics, but at any rate it’s a policy I’ll maintain.  It has been my experience that no-one is ever convinced by anyone of anything, they simply mold each new fact like a Rubik’s cube until it bears the proper ratios, and since I can’t suspend physics or do other impossible things I don’t see any reason to adopt some other fruitless task.  People frequently mail me about the “power I have,” and the great purpose which it much serve, that I am perhaps the Kwisatz Haderach, etc.  I might feel irresponsible if you couldn’t go almost anywhere and see naked, aggressive political maneuvers in iteration, marinating in your ideology of choice.  That’s simply not the case.     

(CW)TB out.

kirby, kirby, kirby

My routine for the past few weeks has been pretty much the same. I get home from a long hard day of work at the PA building around 5:00. Then Kara and I play Shadow Hearts 2 until 9:00. Then we give the baby a bath and we all go to bed. Can you believe that? I go to bed at 9:00 at night. Jesus. It used to be that I didn’t even start playing games in the evening until 10:00. Oh well, at any rate we’ll be finishing up Shadow Hearts tonight. We’ve been trying to do all the side quests before we attempt the final battle. When it’s all over I think we’ll have clocked about 50 hours. It’s been awesome from start to finish, I still highly recommend it.

Our plan is to replace our Shadow Hearts 2 time in the evenings with Lord of the Rings: The Third Age which drops tomorrow. I had the opportunity to play this at the Nintendo Gamer Summit a few weeks back and it kick ass. It’s essentially Final Fantasy X set in the LOTR universe. The guy we talked to didn’t even make any apologies. He just said that they took all the stuff that people like the most about the best RPG’s and tried to put it all into one game. One of the great features I saw was that all your equipment is reflected on your in game character even during cut scenes. It was really nice to pick up a new bit of armor and then see it on your character. Even little things like necklaces and rings show up. I’ve seen screen shots of character towards the end of the game decked out in Full Gondor armor and it looks bad ass.

People have been mailing me asking me to post more pictures of baby Gabe. Since I never use my webcam to take pictures of myself, I decided I turn it into a real Gabe cam. You can see it over at Emma’s site with the rest of her cams. I’ll keep it updated so those of you who are interested can check in on his progress every now and then. Hopefully soon there will be pictures of him wielding a PS2 controller. Meanwhile those of you who don’t give a shit won’t be bothered with baby pictures all over your irreverent humor site.

On a side note, if you are an adolescent male and this is your first time visiting Emma’s site let me save you some time. She has a boyfriend and he’s very nice.

-Gabe out