Gabriel was trying to tell me about his Smurf Town, and how many Smurfs were there, or something. I was given to understand that there were "hella" Smurfs, almost perpetually "up in." I also learned that, like most freemium lures which writhe and flash on the hook, it has a potentially brutal microtransactional backend whose thorny roots grow into its very heart. Apparently, these "Smurfberries" make your Smurfs work their asses off, stay up real late, war with androgynous Shadow Men, and avoid mirrors.

I've been reading Jane McGonigal's Reality Is Broken, and some of the things she says track very closely with the way things work in my own sphere. I am trained - intensely trained - to fail and select retry, that is to say, to iterate, and I can't tell you how much that conditioning helps when you're trying to teach someone to do something when they have no cultural frame of reference, a low threshold for frustration, and an annoying tendency to repeat every Goddamned thing you say in a sing-song, munchkin-like register.

I certainly appreciate everyone sending me tips on gaining weight and building muscle. Tycho’s story was from a few years ago though and I really don’t have that problem anymore. I wish I could say that I committed to a daily exercise routine or something but that’s not the case.

It's crucial to abuse Gabriel lest he get airs, to make him chase phantoms and spirits, to ride his anguish, howling like a pirate in the rigging. Real-Life Gabriel had the exact opposite of the typical problem, though, and I would have thought it was the opposite of a problem at all (that is to say, great!) if I hadn't seen it for myself: he thought he didn't have enough weight.

There is new Penny Arcade Television today, a Fourth Panel, one which describes the writing process for the strip entitled "A New World Record."  We had to remove it briefly and replace it because it contained actual pornography.  Also, I thought this week's Ledo and Ix struck an especially nice tone.

It's very hard to tell how long a fighting game will be a going proposition around here. Soulcalibur IV is still played almost daily by Keek and Robert, typically beginning at 4:30, and that game is three and a half years old. That said, I'm not entirely sure it's really about Soulcalibur anymore.

You crave more of Emily Carmichael's Ledo And Ix, which is the best?  Well, saddle up.

I played Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 at the San Diego Comic-Con what seems like a hundred years ago, and though the roster was a profoundly truncated version of the retail selection, it was very much like what you're playing now: lickety-split full contact puppetry, with shit flying all around. Maybe you're responsible for the shit, maybe not. Maybe the shit happens even if no controllers are touched - I'll test this today. Or maybe you just moved your hands according to the ancient ways, what our people once called a somatic component, and some measure of their magic is made manifest unconsciously.

Losing in a game that takes a long time to play feels bad; and losing in a wargame (which has a tactical component, even if dice are the final arbiter) feels worse. These things are compounded until the defeat becomes a barbed crown of shame, a crown which stands upon each brow differently.

If you want to get a three day pass for PAX East you had better move quick. We only have 1000 of them left. Head over to the PAX site and grab yours today before they are gone!

Pulling Gawker sites off my bar felt momentous, but the relief was incredible. Once I realized that I didn't have to look at them, even if I have done so for years, the habit was broken absolutely.  If I am curious what they have said on any of their sites, I type them in manually. That's right.

In many ways, I just buy the industrial design in Killzone. I buy that actual ISA weapons and dropships might look this way, and I can see a kind of mechanical genetics at play: this lead to this, pragmatism with the occasional muted flourish. I wont lie, I've reloaded just to see the weapon. The Helghast, on the other hand - British Space Nazis (?) that make up Killzone's opposing force - have an industrial design that is all kinds of brooding Skynet nonsense. There's a certain PR factor to be taken into account; a floating, red-eyed arachnoid is definitely situated in Scarytown. But in the middle of all this functional stuff, thoughtful stuff, it verges on hokum. It's like the Helghast have internalized the villainy, they think of themselves as villains, and they surround themselves with little shrines to their own evil.

Just a quick heads up: The last day to order your PAX East tickets and have them mailed to you before the show is Feb. 17th. After that you will need to pick them up at PAX. Also, if you need to change your address for any reason you can mail CGlickstein@reedexpo.com.

Tycho and I finished Dead Space 2 last week and I was really impressed with the game. Overall I didn’t feel like it was as scary as the first one but that changed this weekend. Our dryer stopped venting correctly and it fell on me to determine the problem. This meant exploring the crawl space below our house, something I had never had to do before. I removed the panel, slid into this dark space full of pipes and cables with my flashlight and immediately regretted the eight hours of survival horror I had just completed.

As one of Gabriel's fully actual dreams, this bizarre pastiche was weird enough to record. But now I want to use this character again, to re-enter the Time Files of Bono Trask, even though the workings of his device would almost certainly preclude it. Then I remembered that it was a strip about time travel, a genre where grievous narrative sins are expected and even encouraged. I've already generated no less than three distinct scenarios to shape the inevitable return. I've included exclamation points, to indicate my joy in their construction:

We are running a special sale on our heartris and life t-shirts for valentines day. They are now $14 each!