Before I get underway, I want to make something perfectly clear: The dreams one has after playing Dance Dance Revolution, Eternal Darkness, and Warcraft III in rapid succession are beyond harrowing. I thought I was losing my fucking mind.

If, unlike Gabe, you find discussions of your liberty invigorating, you might want to hit this thread over at Ars Technica. I've made it clear that I'm not a forum man by and large, but I'm a frequent lurker over at Ars.

Another Necrowombicon update from Fatrick:

I don't really have much to say regarding the whole M$ thing that isn't already covered in the comic strip. I should tell you that if you want to talk to someone about that kind of shit, I am really not your man. I honestly don't care. I am sure it's bad and all but I don't worry about stuff like that because I don't really care about computers that much. The other day Tycho tried to tell me about my digital rights and how something bad is going to happen to them or whatever, but it was really boring so I started thinking about Mario Sunshine.

We've been getting mail imploring us to warn you about Palladium for a couple weeks now, and we would have done it sooner - but then we started playing with toys or something, it's kind of hazy but I think there were toys.

It is time to answerer more poster questions since that is all I get in my e-mail anymore.

This has been coming up a lot in my e-mail so I figured I should just answer it right here. It seems that many of you who cannot make it to the con are sending your friends down with money to purchase posters for you. Obviously you need to know how much cash to give these friends. The posters will be $15.00 and no, we will not be charging anything extra to sign them for you. Some people have been asking what times we will be available to sign stuff. The answer is: as long as it takes to sign everything and meet all of you. We have no desire to see the rest of the con at all. We are going for the sole purpose of hooking you guys up with our poster and signing the shit out of whatever you bring us. If things are slow and we decide to scamper off one of the folks at the table will just ring our cell and we will get our asses back there lickity split.

Here is the latest update from Fatrick regarding the Necrowombicon: It has been brought to my attention that some people assume that registering for the convention at thenecrowombicon@hotmail.com will get you the group rate at the hotel. this is incorrect. you must deal with the hotel yourself to get the group rate. in order to get the $129 a night group rate, you needed to call the hotel and reserve a room by Tuesday the 16th of July. After that, you're on your own for accommodations.

People have been asking when we are going to start updating Land of the Rising Fun again. Honestly there just hasn't been a lot of Import news to cover. That has all changed now though. Gungrave, Mario Sunshine and Beach Spikers all just hit Japan and the holly Ikaruga is set to drop in the near future. The import scene is really starting to cook and we are trying our damndest to get in on some of the action. As soon as we start getting some of these titles in you can bet your ass we'll be covering them here. I also got quite a bit of mail after my Neo-Geo reviews from people wanting to know where they can get their own home cart system. Well the guys at the Videogame depot just got a batch of them. If you want the best 2D fighting game ever made to go along with your new Neo-Geo, and you make poor money management decisions then I'd recommend picking up a copy of Mark of the Wolves while you're there.

Are we going to import Super Mario Sunshine, even though it'll be out in the US in just thirty days? Hell yes.

How is everyone? Good, I hope. Would anyone else like to level a spurious allegation against us? I do so relish it. However, please ensure that your equipment can manage our Mongol horde!

I've never heard of Metal Ice comics before today, but apparently we've been stealing his shit. And really, we would have to be, because shit is all they have over there.

The last time we heard about Acclaim's Adventures in Marketing, they were trying to put ads on tombstones. At least, they said they were, and that's virtually all it took to activate the scandal-friendly media. In a recent, milder, more nonsensical ploy, a young man lines up fifty days in advance to get Turok of all things, thereby setting a world record. There's so much wrong with this that it is difficult to ascertain which element is the wrongest.

We played a bunch of games today and each time we fell victim to the “Hero Rush”. Nothing makes you feel more like a retard than having your base destroyed by a hero and some ghouls a couple minutes into the game. Here is one of the more miserable replays I saved. As embarrassing as it is I am showing you this because I would like some advice. Those of you out there who use this tactic, how could someone beat it? Since everyone seems to be using this now I really want to know what we can to counter it. Thanks.

I agree with Batjew about the matching service. From what I understand (and I could be totally wrong here) its first goal is to match you with someone of similar skill level. Barring that, its second goal is to match you with someone within 30 seconds. I think that Blizzard should implement a system that allows you to see who you are going to be paired up with and cancel out of it if it’s someone much higher than you. They should also give you the option of turning off the thirty second timer. I would rather it search for a few minutes to find another player close my skill level than drop me into a game with Keyser fucking Soze. Of course that still doesn’t solve the problem of people creating new accounts just to appear as lower level players.