I don't expect difficulties like this to be a common occurrence, but coming up on E3 everyone here is basically going all the time - Kiko is our audiomancer on this project, and he had to finish up actual work before he could sink his teeth into yesterday's raw audio.  We're planning on maintaining the schedule next week, so that'll mean another one on Wednesday, and we've got a system set up on Gabe's laptop that should let us record and edit podcasts while we're at E3 the week after. 

I feel pretty bad about the whole thing, and I'm sorry.  The podcasts are my favorite thing about the site at the moment.

(CW)TB

We here at Penny Arcade make it a point to avoid politics for the most part and I don’t want to have that conversation now. But I did get this email today and I thought it was pretty amazing.

I thought I’d post a drawing I did last week for my wife. This is her WOW character Kimbela. You can see my inks on top and then Joe Pekar’s incredible colors underneath.

MC Frontalot, Penny Arcade's rapper laureate, has comitted himself to the rigors of a tour.  Is he playing near you?  Maaaaybe.  There is also a documentary being produced to chronicle his struggles etc., and for a taste of the aforementioned there is a torrent for the trailer here. 

Also, for New York fans of The Front, he is apparently having some kind of signing.  Observe:

"Front is doing a public meet & greet at Forbidden Planet comics in NYC (Broadway & 13th). Everyone who shows up can put one word on a list and then on the bus ride home he will write a rap that has all the words in it. Later, he will make a recording of it. Also, the person who puts in the best word (judge of best word: Front, duh) gets a signed Penny Arcade Expo 2005 DVD. There will be shirts and CDs too."

My goodness!  Our little Front, he is all growed up.

(CW)TB

You really must be joking. What names were rejected, that something like Wii remained vertical at the end of it?

I have these strange lumps in my body that grow every year. I mostly try to put it out of my mind, but they do stir occasionally, like kittens below the skin. I sometimes wonder what is inside them.

We actually wrote Monday's strip a little ahead of when we usually would, so secure were we in the idea that Silent Hill was legally bound to bring the heat.  After you have shuffled past the spent cartons of this or that, the movie snack graveyard, and eyes have begun to adjust to ordinary light levels, that "conversation" everyone always has begins.  That's something we wanted to recognize.  When we returned from the theater, a place we now associate with darkness and pain, we wrote the strip that we eventually posting - I like the new one a good deal better.  Just the same, in the way that the podcasts illuminate scaly or vestigial comics, I thought I might as well post the other script - the one from that sun-dappled kingdom of shapeless potential, before we'd seen the film in question.

Frame 1:

Tycho:  Listen, I'll get my coat.  I'll go see it with you.

Gabe:  <i>No. You already had the critical after-movie talk.  With
Blake.  (ptoo)

I spit on his name!

Tycho:  I don't know what you're talking about.

Frame 2:

Gabe:  You know, you come out of there, high on <i>movie, and you're
talking about all your favorite parts.  It's the <i>digestion.

Gabe:  That's what I'm talking about.  That's what I <i>want.

Tycho:  You'll see.  It'll be like I never even saw it.

Frame 3:

Gabe:  Oh, man!  How awesome was that part!  The one with the <i>guy.
When he <i>emerged?  Wasn't it cool?

Tycho:  Yeah, I guess it was cool.

<i>Yesterday.

(CW)TB

When last we spoke, I was considering the timing and severity of my punishment. You see, I'd just won some kind of contest to see Silent Hill early, and I'd gotten it into my head that the universe would do me some injury for it.  The turnaround on this one, cosmically speaking, was brisk. I was not yet prepared for the idea that the blessing and the curse might be concomitant.

So Downloadable Content: The Penny Arcade Podcast is number 4 on iTune’s list of the most popular podcasts. We’re actually right behind ESPN and right above Happy Tree Friends. Bet you little fuckers aren’t so happy now huh?

When good things happen to me, it is hard to enjoy them because I am sure I must suffer an equal amount at some future time. I don't know where this idea came from.  I don't actually believe that there exists a comprehensive spiritual physics.  All the same, this imagery is so vivid that it must have some origin beyond my transient mortal equipment: a blinding God of polished brass, one hand heavy with my blessings, the other exquisite palm raised in imminent violence. 

I edited the files so that all the information is in the ID3 now, so for those who download the files directly everything is now in place. iTunes really makes it look like everything is there, even when it is decidedly not there, so that's where the trouble came from. Also, I put in a couple new tags that help the feed itself resolve on aggregators aside from "the big dog."

(CW)TB

A new episode of Downloadable Content - The Penny Arcade Podcast has been made available. As always, you can subscribe to our iTunes compatible feed here.

About a dozen people have pointed me towards this article or one similar to it. Apparently Apple is underclocking the X1600 in the MacBook Pro in order to reduce noise and extend battery life. I’ve been told you can return it to it’s factory settings with some tools but I have not tried yet. Interesting stuff.

So I installed Boot Camp on my MacBook yesterday. I had read a few articles saying that people playing games under Windows on the new Intel Macs saw a “20% performance increase”. That number doesn’t mean anything to me so I figured I should test it out myself.

I discuss ennui relating to the coming media apocalypse in the imminent podcast, but I am only one of two people who operate this website and we are not always of one mind. Even if a person were interested in high-definition content to drive their robust new display, internecine warfare poised to fragment the industry, ravage your technology investment, and punish early adopters isn't exactly an aphrodisiac.