A few of you asked for something official from the Hospital regarding our toy drive. I understand that you never can be too careful. No shame in being certain that Tycho and I weren’t just going to take the toys and move to Mexico or something. Anyway here is the official letter from the Seattle Children’s Hospital:

I just wanted to make a quick post regarding the Links 2004 review over at IGN. Obviously the review is shit since it came from IGN. In fact they actually lied in part of it.

Once your heart hurts for more than twenty-four hours, it's probably time to go see somebody who knows about them. When he originally described the sensations he was experiencing, I thought he was simply feeling an emotion, something he might find disorienting. Nope, it was just the heart thing.

I would imagine that the great preponderance of you are, just now, awaking from a indistinct vision of roasted birds and heritage desserts. Was it real? And what should you see on Penny Arcade but a comic that references female genitalia with an almost harrowing specificity. I doubt this will be a template for future strips, unless in our wisdom we can find a way to make these organs evoke Deus Ex.

Wow, this is super cool!

This is from PA reader Poe regarding the LOK code mentioned above:

I’m about to take off for Spokane but I wanted to make a quick post. I’ll be gone for a few days but I will do my best to stay up to date on my mail. I wanted to answer another question that has popped up in my email a few times regarding the toys.

I know that a lot of people keep up with those guys, so I'm just making sure you know: Season One of Red vs. Blue is now available on shiny Digital Versatile Disc. It sounds like a fairly fancy production.

We found this news item - tucked away over at Gamespot - to be completely fascinating. Clearly we exaggerate the case in our comic, it's sort of what we do. But at the same time Gabriel and I are asking our parents and grandparents if it's even okay to "enjoy" their wars, this is a thought exercise on some completely other level.

If you are like me, every time you see an article like this one, where the author claims that video games are training our nations youth to kill you get angry. The media seems intent on perpetuating the myth that gamers are ticking time bombs just waiting to go off. I know for a fact that gamers are good people. I have had the opportunity on multiple occasions to meet hundreds of you at conventions all over the country. We are just regular people who happen to love video games.

I just got an interesting email from PA reader Wes who had the opportunity to attend a book signing by James Luceno author of The Unifying Force. He had this to say:

The way we see it is this: if we're going to be blocked as obscene by so many filters, we ought to at least earn it.

I just about have The Unifying Force wrapped up. Already I can say it’s my favorite book of the series. I won’t go into any detail here because I don’t want to spoil any of the awesome surprises this book will spring on you. I’m honestly sad to this series come to an end but there is apparently life after NJO. This story from Star Wars.com says that Troy Denning who authored one of the other great books in the NJO series Star by Star is already signed up to pen a new novel that takes place some time after NJO.

Fans of the New Jedi Order series are now tearfully traversing the pages of the final volume - weighing in at nineteen linked novels by a handful of different authors, it's easily the most elaborate undertaking in what is called The Expanded Universe. It's not really my thing. Maybe Gabe can come by later and tell us about the graceful Chungo blade-dance. I'm riveted.

This is basically just to test it out, no prizes or anything this time - but here's the information for the Tournament. Looks like you have a week to get your score in. Tournament name is "PA Invitational," password is 9090550, round settings are R5NJY8C.

Penny Arcade's other purpose is to measure time for us, like a metronome - commemorating the site's fifth year will serve any person on a romp through the archive as well. I'm sorry to keep harping on it, but it just seems so impossible.