There is a level in Mechassault called River City, a pretty cool urban environment which becomes a bouquet of twisted wreckage about five minutes into the match. Do otherwise rational beings actually live there? If not, what are the buildings for? And who builds them back up, thinking this, surely this will be the last time a parade of mechanical giants redecorates the place with futuristic weapons?

We thought about maybe having another game day this month, maybe trying to make it a monthly thing, but the fact is he plays it every night anyway, so it wouldn't be anything special to set aside a day. I keep saying I'm going to try and get in there, but ever since I got back from Spokane I've been sleeping these odd, strangely human hours that put me out of sync with late-night gaming. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean you can't try to get in there, his Tag is Gabe, and he should be easy enough to find. That's not to say you actually want to be in a game with him, now - he takes this Mech King shit very seriously, he will leverage his uncoachable skill in your direction and you will weep. Weep!

Anything to do with words, accents, jargon, and indeed language in general is a source of endless excitement for me, so I think I will probably have to pick up The Getaway even if it's terrible. Of course, I'm not saying it is - I only saw last year's E3 demo, which was okay I guess - but this is the power and extent of my mania, that I will suffer through any ordeal in order to hear the way an English person says the word "alright." It is delicious, it is like my ear is eating when I hear it. They could change it around so you have to eat dots while pursued through London alleys by rowdy, wisecracking toughs just so long as everybody keeps talking in that entertaining way.

Long before there was any such thing as Penny Arcade, I ate Top Ramen for three months and saved enough to go to Ireland. I have such low impulse control that I don't think I should ever leave America, much less my house again - but we've been saving to go to Germany for a while, so unless I can convince Brenna that we really need a horse or something, we'll have to go. Re: Ireland, though. I am in a "pub" in Tralee, where two Irish men dressed as cowboys are playing Top 40 country accompanied by a drum machine. It's possible that this surreal scene combined with an ample flow of hard products set up this next event, but I know that I would have done it completely sober, in the middle of the day, at a park. Two Irish girls sat next to us on this bench, and I said, "So what's up with you guys and the British?"

(CW)TB out.

the joy of your world is paul barman

When I professed my nearly psychotic fascination with HBO series shows like Oz or The Sopranos, many people wrote in to suggest that Band of Brothers was not to be missed. It's out on DVD now, I honestly don't know when it came out, but I hope it was recent or else I'm telling you something you already know. The Boxed Set is a very nice little production, though almost overwhelming in expense when purchased at retail - renting each of the five DVDs or queueing them up on Netflix or whatever is probably the more sensible approach. I've only just seen the first one, and it left me so satisfied I wanted to take a nap.

Also just out - and I know this is recent, because I've been waiting for it on the edge of my seat - are the first two seasons on The Twilight Zone on DVD. I've been hesitant to try and complete a collection of Twilight Zone shows because it those individual discs were so expensive. Not that these collections aren't, but if you're completely crazy about TZ it is at least conceivable.

(CW)TB

I'm also crazy about Acronyms, and to it warms my heart to present to you the Penny Arcade Internet Notification Tool. With us posting more here, and at odd times, this tray utility will let you know when we put something up. Feel free to grab a copy, and if you like it, please let its author Neil know that you love him.

(CW)TB

I get press releases all the time, but I usually don't post them because I don't find the content terribly interesting. This stuff warrants mention.

We had heard a rumor that there'd be new content today, but that must have been a corrupt reading - what they did today was announce new content. Starting in January, we should be getting almost weekly additions to the game - mechs, maps, and gametypes. I've got some screens of the new "Hell's Kitchen" map right here, if you want to see them - in fact, I have no less than (one, two, three) four. There's more than that, but it's not in this release and I don't want my guy in there to get in trouble.

Things I can show, though, are a new mech and a variant on that mech that will be coming out - check it:

Raven (Click here for image)
(loadout may change due to balance)
Speed 42 m/s (2nd fastest Mech in the game)
Laser x 2
MachineG x 2
Defense Null Sig x 2 (the x2 means it lasts twice as long as normal)
No Jump

Corvus (Click here for image)
(loadout may change due to balance)
Speed 42 m/s
Pulse Laser x 2
Auto Cannon x 1
Defense Target Jam x 2(the x2 means it lasts twice as long as normal)
JumpJets

Something to chew on, for the time being.

(CW)TB

My nightly MechAssault partner, Kiko of Gameskins.com fame has just informed me that Penny Arcade shirts are back in stock. If you have been dying to get your hands on either a Wang Fu or a Shut your Pie Hole shirt now is your chance. I know it sounds cliché but you should get them while they last. Wang Fu especially has a way of disappearing with a quickness.

-Gabe out

It looks like we have the same incentive to pre-order the new Zelda that they did in Japan - that Zelda 64/Ura Zelda bonus disc. If you don't know what I mean, give this link a little clickeroo.

(CW)TB