I keep loading up today's comic and laughing at it. It probably goes without saying that I like Penny Arcade - but sometimes I like like it, and want to marry it, and today is one of those days.

You might recall that Gabe and I never had any intention of doing "funny" cartoons, and some would argue that we've been largely successful. He'd never let me scan them, but we've got a few pages of our old superhero comic, G4 - not to be confused with the G4 Network, let alone Gen13. I never read comic books growing up, so I was under the impression that the "Superhero Who Used To Be In A Concentration Camp" was a creature of my own invention. After that came the worst internal dialogue ever written, and Gabe, if you've ever loved me, you won't quote it, followed by Chickenman, and then Sand. The writing on each was such an exercise in naked hubris that I'm horrified that they still exist, in any fashion, anywhere.

Though I still attend my crew's nightly Medal of Honor excursions, my heart just isn't in it anymore. I can't even bring myself to tell them. It's not you, baby. It's me. Which brings me to the subject of Jedi Knight II. Don't listen to Gabe. Good advice most of the time, actually.

Aside from Heretic II, I've never really gotten into Raven's multiplayer offerings. I guess I played Mageslayer, and Hexen, but that was more of a co-op thing. No, I'm talking about the explicitly multi portions of their high-profile FPS games. It's probably not fair of me to say, but it seems like they don't bring a lot to the dance most of the time. They seem dutiful for the most part, serviceable but not exemplary. From the moment I joined a server, though, Jedi Outcast hooked me. Very fast paced, with inimitable style, visual execution, and best-of-show melee combat - I want to leave this paragraph unfinished and go play. As an example: I went in just to bind a key to "taunt" (it's not in the config menus, just type "bind x +taunt" in the console I think) and didn't come out until an hour later. Nearly every tactic has a counter, and I've been defeated in ways so clever that even as a corpse I can appreciate them. With Soldier of Fortune 2's unprecedented Random Map Generator and a focus on realism, either we're seeing a new trend that makes Raven a real competitor online, or they always were and I've fucked myself out of some great games.

I guess some people at TribalWar are mad that I said things, which was sort of the point. Obviously, I have no quarrel with those who are not irrational zealots. If they're going to be this much fun about it, though, it is my intention to hit them until candy comes out. Some have suggested that I said the things I did because we are somehow jealous of TribalWar's traffic and readership, a proposition so ridiculous that I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. Allow me to detail this issue in a manner suited to your powers of cognition.

This is Penny Arcade.

This is TribalWar.

I've placed a special message for them somewhere on the site. I hope they'll enjoy it, but I have a feeling they won't.

(CW)TB out.

eighty-five yards, the max