As a young man I worked a series of retail jobs at Toys R Us and then Circuit City. With out a doubt the worst day to work was Black Friday. I used to dread having to come in and deal with the insane people who showed up for all the deals. I remember one year at Circuit City we were offering a “free” computer. It was a shitty Compaq and you had to sign up for like four years of AOL to get all the rebates. You’d be surprised how many people don’t read the fine print. When they found out about the AOL bit I got yelled at as if this was my fucking policy. I sat there taking the abuse and trying to imagine the world that these people lived in. A world where computers are just given away for free on every street corner. It must be wonderful to be that stupid.

It being Friday, there is new episode of Penny Arcade: The Series. Specifically, The Proposal.  Also called "Erika: The Series." 

There were a few more jinks in reserve. These are aged jinks, comparable to a smoky Gouda.

Poker Night At The Inventory is out, and I've read some really nice things about it sur le web.  I wrote a few lines, but mostly looked after tone, which they seemed to have a strong handle on already.  I snuck a few lines in for other characters as well, because when am I gonna have an opportunity like that again?  Fun project, though.  A+++, would work with again, etc.

These jinks are so hi, you'll need an altimeter.

Is now available.  Has been for a little while, actually.  Good Lord writing these is fun.

There's been a rash of new OnLive reviews, based now on the MicroConsole - the standalone bit that hooks directly into a television. You already know what we think of the service itself: impressive technology, but not well suited to every genre. The device itself is beyond compact, very Astro in its profile, dense with capability without feeling crowded. When we were using the service on our Macs at work, though, the novelty was amplified considerably. Batman: Arkham Asylum isn't something we can play in OSX, and it's easy to be forgiving of an experience that is wholly enabled by their technology. When you've got it on a television, though, and you try to jump and you guy does it when he's Goddamn good and ready, it mostly makes you wonder why you aren't playing on a regular console.

I just got a mail from Eitan over at Fire Hose Games, who was kind enough to teach me how to play their game Slam Bolt Scrappers at the last PAX.  It's a game full of bizarre dudes, and they're auctioning off the rights to name said dudes, which I thought was pretty cool.

Welcome to Season Two.  

Have you seen the multiplayer for Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood? You really, really should. Yeah, sometimes it ends in a pigpile. This is what happens when you trap eight sociopaths in a murder simulator. For every pile-up like the one depicted though, every exacting period clusterfuck, the natural motion of the players in the space will provide ten utterly unique moments. At least.

With the kind of pressure I exert in the post for others to donate, I feel a strong compulsion to strike with decisive force.  Here's this year's Haul, then, now en route to Newfoundland and Labrador's Janeway Children's Hospital Foundation:

I keep saying that I'm not going to talk about Kinect anymore, but it's such a comprehensive lozenge of so many ideas that it's kind of irresistible. This isn't even really about Kinect anyway, it's more about its shredding, concentric psychic wake.

My process for this thing is completely fucked, it's devoured the schedule I had and I apologize.  There are a ton of excuses I could make about it, and maybe that would make me feel better, but I don't want to feel better - I want to write.  I'm getting it back on track, and starting next Tuesday we should be good until the end of it without any further interruptions of service.

For some reason, I don't remember exactly why, I stumbled onto the concept of Antipatterns this weekend.  This is precisely the sort of "insider language with strong generalist implications" that I like to collect, and it gave me the grounding I needed to read this article here.  Riot Games' Design Director Zileas lays out a few pernicious, lingering design practices in clear language with solid examples.

Brenna took my Xbox and its grim Observator to a party, and when she returned near midnight, she didn't have it with her. She'd left it at the party because the gathered throng were so amused by Dance Central that she couldn't bear to withdraw their Funk Totem. When her friend Ellen brought it back the next day, she wanted to know if they could get one for their Xbox, or if you had to have some special version, or what. I don't know what the arrangement is between Microsoft and Harmonix; whatever it is, it can't possibly be commensurate with their contribution. "Free Dance Central" when you spend 25 dollars at Old Navy? When would Old Navy have ever been in striking range of those wretched Goddamned werewolves and sorcerers in Redmond?

This a comic about... Well, just read it. It's quick.