I feel really bad about destroying all the work we’ve done for the last seven years. It really is unfortunate that I melted everything we’ve ever created. I think that we need to look at the bright side though. I think we all learned an important lesson about backing up your files. We also learned that no matter how much money you invest in a back up system, it will never even come close to the amount of money the hard drive witch doctors will charge you in order to recover your fried data. The good news is that all the files can be saved. We dodged that bullet.

I can remember being so proud of him three years ago when he braved the Morlocks at CompUSA and picked up a little USB backup drive. Now, I'm not even sure he knew what he was buying. This is what he did when he got it: he copied every crucial thing off of his computer, to the backup drive, at which point he imagined some mysterious process was, shit, I don't know. Mummifying his data. Our data, everything we've ever done.

I’m not sure if it’s okay to link to someone who says nice things about you. You might remember a while back we created an illustrated journal to go along with Brothers in Arms from Gearbox. Well in his most recent blog the writer for the game talks about the experience from his end. I would like to say thanks to Mikey for the kind words. Being given the opportunity to develop a character for such an amazing game was a real honor.

Okay check out this thread for information on joining the Knights or the Lads.

I’ve been having a great time on Dark Iron lately with the rest of the PA fans. The Pandas seem to try and hit us every night which makes for some of the most intense WOW I’ve ever played. I’m proud to say that the two guilds we stared the Knights of Arcadia and the Fancy Lads are really doing great. Everyone for the most part is following my don’t be a dick rule and I met some great people. I’m also proud of all the other PA related guilds on Dark Iron like Cardboard Samurai and Annarchy. I’ve seen quite a few other PA guilds during my travels and I’ve been impressed by them every single time. In my opinion we are all members of one giant PA guild.

So we had to ask the Hyatt very, very nicely if they would house our people. They have agreed to. So, if you aren't set up yet, check out the hotel info page on the PAX site - they got a map and ever'thing.

I guess I didn't get the job, but then I got another job? Some kind of ass thing? Ask Gabe, I guess.

Robert is sort of the unofficial ambassador for the Northwest, and he's always telling people where they should eat and what they should do. He cooked up a forum thread that includes a few things PAX attendees might check out while they are up. I can personally vouch for the Regent, where I have had more almond bubble tea with coconut jelly than I have any right to.

I’d like to point you towards a press release from Sabertooth Games. I’m really glad I can finally tell you guys about this project since we've been working on it for months now. As you can see from the release Penny Arcade is about to be a CCG. We had a chance to sit down and play an early version of the game recently and I can assure you this is going to be cool. I can’t share a lot of the details with you just yet but the game stays very true to the comic and it’s full of inside jokes and characters you guys will really appreciate.

So there's apparently some kind of feud going on between Gabe and the guy from our EB.

So the two guilds we started over on the new Dark Iron server are packed out. We are not currently accepting members into either the Knights of Arcadia or the Fancy Lads. I imagine that very soon we will start to see that a lot of the people who joined up just did it on a lark and really have no intention of staying and fighting the Horde with us. So My guess is we will be looking for new blood at some point in the future. However there is always the possibility that all 854 members of these two guilds came to play and we won’t be losing members anytime soon.

Bioware has a poll on their front page asking what your favorite web comic is. I think you should vote for PA but that's just me.

At San Diego Comic-Con, a reader told me about a game called "Cave Story" that I simply couldn't live without - a completely independent platformer whose quality and craft had really surprised him. I'd forgotten about it until I read TIGS' interview with the creator.

Reading The Independent Games Source earlier this week brought Kenta Cho to mind, and if you've never lost hours to his sometimes gripping shooters please do yourself a favor - unless you have a project or something coming up, in which case you should avoid the link at all costs.

There can be no doubt that I "protest too much" on matters of geekery outside the boundaries of good discretion. It is only raw will that keeps me from spilling over into the dark appetites of the full-on dork - the wearing of capes, the leading of other lives, and so forth. That I perceive a distinction between my own level of nerdity relative to others is probably itself illusory, but the notion must be maintained if I am to continue behaving with a smug superiority.

The Penny Arcade assault on the Dark Iron server was pretty incredible. Please check this forum thread for the whole story.