Did any of you catch this Viacom/Activision shit? We found it fascinating, and utilizing a mysterious procedure we converted this fascination into strip form. Essentially, Activision is suing Viacom because Star Trek sucks. It's strange, because I've been thinking about the intersection of Videogames and Star Trek a good deal lately. I am not the guy that knows the names of all the episodes, but I do have what I think is a healthy affection for this "franchise." Healthy, of course, being a relative term.

The last time I sold original artwork on Ebay was probably two and a half or three years ago. I don’t sell original artwork for two reasons. One, I hate to part with my drawings. I like packing them away in boxes and stuffing them in the closet. In fact, I still have drawings I did in the fifth grade. The second reason I don’t sell art is because I am embarrassed. I remember about a year ago I saw a drawing by Prio fetch some un-Godly sum of money and I thought “well that’s it, you can never auction off a drawing again.”

I just got back from Spokane this afternoon. It’s not a super long drive, only about 4 and half hours or so but it’s really ugly. When people think of Washington State my guess is they think of green trees and snow capped mountains. Well the fact is that accurately represents only about 10 percent of Washington. The other 90 percent is ass ugly desert and farm land with nothing to look at except cows and dust clouds.

If you have any money left over after Scott McCloud's comic, and now you're hooked on micropaying for things, maybe you could get your next fix here. Joshua Ellis sells his album Love Songs For Bastards with their system, I guess it's the future of content distribution or something, but the previews of his tracks sound pretty good. In the future, or any other time.

My last newspost on Monday looked like this.

Just saw on VE that the Tron 2.0 multiplayer demo is out. Let's see how they did.

Do not - I repeat, do not - write me about this comic. Short of transcribing it from dictation, the strip as you see it is completely Gabriel's doing and all mail of any kind should be directed to him. I'm the one who tries to be a good person, to see where others are coming from and to recognize each person's unique gifts. I am the one who mediates concerns and endeavors to minimize hurt feewings. I have indulged him in this matter because his belief that the perpetrators of the blackmail are "hippies" is very strong, and I thought he might explode if he were not able to fashion a response to them. So that's that. Ain't a bad strip, neither.

The more Viewtiful Joe I play the more I think that the lack of save points is a real pain in the ass. You can play for a long time without ever getting the option to save. You can buy extra guys in the shop which helps but it would still be nice if they gave you more save points. I just played for almost two hours and was not able to reach the next save point. I will be starting tomorrow again right at the beginning of the level I started today. I am willing to admit that I am probably just not very good at the game but I still think more saves would be nice.

Tycho mentioned that we had received copies of Viewtiful Joe and Metal Slug 3 from VGD yesterday. Both of them are awesome and I thought I'd just talk about each one briefly.

I had gone to Planet GameCube, obviously, to see if they had a FAQ for the machine and didn't find it. In my defense, I looked for three seconds.

I wouldn't go as far as this guy, withdrawing my support entirely from the Hiptop as a device, but T-Mobile remotely removing the suite of games from Color Hiptops is sort of shitty. I'm not even saying they were great games, they weren't. I've only been bored enough to access them three times since I got it. But God dammit, at least they were there, like the last Mento, in case I needed it for some reason.

The original Game Boy was the first dedicated gaming appliance I ever purchased, and I have kept up that tradition dutifully. It's a pretty slick package, and though the software that comes with it has some features for sharpening or smoothing the graphics, etcetera, the bottom line is that is lets you play Game Boy games on your television, a la the Super Game Boy. Any individual features are corollaries to that. A reader asked me if the device colorized older Game Boy games like the Game Boy Color did, and I assume so, but I don't know - I must have lost my older games in the move, which makes my heart ache. Another reader wanted to know if it can play imports, and I can't imagine why not, but I couldn't tell you one way or the other. I'll ask Travis, I bet he'll know. The only questions I can actually answer are about Advance Wars 2, I'm afraid. For example: Is it awesome? Yes.

Don’t fuck with Penny Arcade.

I read the new Harry Potter book, all nine hundred or so pages of it, before I went to bed that day. I got it early, passing the mailman wearing the wizards hat, pushing down a little girl. I drove home with the book in my lap, singing a song which could not be transcribed, because it was the audible form of joy.

It's a white GameCube. Oh boy!