The last comic in the FF mini series.

I feel like we know each other well enough that we can be honest with each other. I draw the pictures here at Penny Arcade. That's my job and I like to think I do it pretty well. Tycho is the one who writes the funny news posts that we have all come to enjoy so much each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Sure there will be times when I chime in with the occasional anecdote but it's always just a side dish in relation to Tycho's main post. Like any side dish it's only good when accompanied by something a bit more…shall we say substantial. I enjoy corn for example but if that was all I had to eat for two weeks I'd get sick of it pretty fast. With that in mind I have deiced that rather than ladle another pile of corn onto your plates today I would instead serve you a…uh dish from the…yeah this food metaphor is getting away from me. The gist is I'm doing a best of Tycho tribute today. Like when a sitcom runs out of ideas and they throw together a flash back episode. So without further ado I give you…Carrot Cake Soup.

-Gabe out

Originally posted by Tycho on January 14th 2002

Long story short, I'm getting my chicken soup on, it's Sunday afternoon, and Gabe's reading some Preacher in the Den, which is also the living room, the bathroom, and the foyer. I am interacting with pasta dough in what I think is a stern way, when I hear him say that he might like the soup better if it were, in fact, carrot cake. It hits us, hits us both, simultaneously, like a semi made out of lightning which is also a professional boxer. Carrot Cake Soup. You cube the carrot cake, some pieces have frosting and some don't, and you put a handful of these chunks into a bowl full of milk. So let's go do it. We'll do it later this week, he says. But I know that's the same as not doing it. Why not now, I say? I know a store where we can get all the stuff. You can just buy it, the way you can buy stuff in the household cleaners section and make a bomb big enough to kill God. The stuff is just lying around there and nobody's doing anything with it. It's not a crime to buy them separately, and what we do at home isn't any of their fucking business.

I think someone might have been following us as we pulled into the parking lot, we walked toward the grocery store and tried to keep the conversation natural. We certainly didn't discuss carrot cake or the soup one might make by cutting it into cubes and swimming islands of it in cold milk, pleasure islands, like you'd see in a magazine. At the bakery counter, a woman asks if she can help me, and I'm so nervous that as I'm pointing to the carrot cake behind the glass, my finger starts to tap in Morse Code that reads:

I AM ABOUT TO COMMIT A CRIME AGAINST GOD AND MAN STOP

And where is Gabe with that Goddamn milk? There he is, in the self-checkout. Idiot. There's cameras all over that thing, it's like a Goddamn surveillance tree. It doesn't take a genius to put two and two together. A red light flashes on, and off in my mind. At another checkstand, I pay with untraceable cash, assuring the woman that I will eat the cake by myself, without assistance from cows. I smirk. This woman has no idea that she's just sold me the trigger to a flavor gun. Carrot Cake Soup is like the taste of watching girls make out. It has an extraordinary power that oscillates between gentle and overwhelming, between light and dark, between pleasure and more pleasure. When it was over, I realized that I was panting. I was in possession of carnal knowledge. And I knew that, somehow, every taste beyond this point was in the service of the one that still lingered, waited, to remind me that nature has laws, and those that break them are criminals, and though they roam free enough the knowing will hold them, and keep them, until the last.

(CW)TB out.

I am not sure but I think he might be a genius. Don’t tell him I said that, I don’t need him going all Megatokyo on me and kicking my ass out. This comic is my gravy train and as long as he thinks I’m the star I can ride it from hell to breakfast.

-Gabe out

If Italy were a videogame, Venice would be the second level.

You've still got the twisty streets you had in Rome, and plenty of other old cities I've been in - except now, you replace over half of those streets (including the main one that runs through the whole town) with water. You know how in first-person games, you'll often come upon a grate that hinders your progress - or some ridiculous piece of design like "the ground just stops here" that seems trite and lazy when you see it. The person who made that level isn't bored with their job or trying to cut corners, they're accurately simulating Venice. You'll just be going along and then, no sign, no nothing - just mute water.

I'm pretty screwed up at this point, thinking of Venice - a human city - as a "level" is just the start of it. Everywhere I look I see the underlying game mechanism. All I have with me is WarioWare, which is cool, but if I don't get something substantial at some point over here I'm going to freak the fuck out.

I saw the old ladies with the woven donation baskets pleading with me in a foreign tongue, and all I could think about was whether the pictures of Jesus and Mary they had in there conferred some kind of donation bonus.

Of course, there's a metagame being played by the entire city, how much money can we make off tourists before our gravy train sinks like Atlantis beneath the waves.

The psychotic break made was practically audible when I walked off streets that looked like the Italy level in CounterStrike only to find myself with twenty people playing the Italy level inside an Internet Cafe. Thank God that place had a liquor license.

(CW)TB

On behalf of everyone here at PA, I would like to extend our best wishes to PA reader John who was diagnosed with cancer when he was 18. Now 19 his cancer has gone into remission and his friends tell me he is apparently doing quite well. This is just a note to let you know that about 2 million gamers are rooting for you John.

I know that was a pretty heavy post and that you come to PA to be amused so…look at my kitty!

-Gabe out

As if the fact that the Nokia N-Gage is a pile of shit was not enough by itself to keep gamers everywhere from purchasing it, the head of Nokia’s entertainment division decided to insult his target audience. In an article over at Gamespot he had this to say regarding their competition.

"Game Boy is for 10-year-olds," said Ilkka Raiskinen, head of Nokia's entertainment and media arm. "If you're 20 or 25 years old, it's probably not a good idea to draw a Game Boy out of your pocket on a Friday night in a public space."

Dear Mr. Nokia, my name is Gabe. You might know me better as a member of the lucrative 18-25 year old male demographic. That’s right, I am a 24 year old early adopter with disposable income just burning a hole in my pocket and a thirst for the latest technological gadgets. I also happen to be a gamer which makes me the exact sort of person who might purchase your new cellular phone/portable game system. Unfortunately for you that will never happen.

Your first mistake was creating a dual purpose product that fails miserably at both of its purposes. Your phone is awkward and uncomely. Your game system is undesirable and insipid.

Your second mistake was in allowing Mr. Raiskinen to ever open his fucking mouth in public. His statement is so absurd that it borders on the humorous. In fact if I were not quite certain that he was serious I would think it was a joke. Not a good idea to take out a game boy in a public place? Does this man even live on this planet? Did he make these comments from inside some kind of protective bubble orbiting the earth, insulated from the day to day happenings of it’s inhabitants? If I am out with my buddies on a Friday night and we are waiting in line for a movie or some other event I can guarantee that Game Boys will come out. Not one of my friends is without a GBA. They are practically a necessity at this point. Like bread or water. It is the poor young man still playing snake on his cell phone in the airport that gets the pitting look from our group.

We even strung our link cables across the seats in the airplane on our way to E3 in order to partake in some four player Puyo Pop. Whereas airline regulations will not even allow me to turn on your masterfully designed game system while anywhere near a fucking airplane much less play a game to pass the time. Oh and speaking of great design, having to remove the battery in order to change games…brilliant.

Between your insulting advertising, shitty fucking product and infuriating public comments it’s almost like you are TRYING to get gamers to hate you. I honestly cannot understand how a single company could make so many mistakes. I await your next move with absolute fear because at this rate there is no telling what you might do. Perhaps Nokia agents will scour the globe seeking out gamers and then kicking them firmly in the yam sack. Or maybe letters! Mailed out to gamers worldwide that upon opening release deadly nanomachines into the air that once inhaled by the gamer begin to devour him from the inside out. God only knows what horrors await us gamers at the hands of these Finnish devils. Stay vigilant my friends!

-Gabe out

The Necrowombicon is approaching and we here at the arcade are getting pretty damn excited. For those of you unfamiliar with the wombicon let me break it down for you. Imagine a two day Penny Arcade festival full of videogames, music and dorks just like you and I. Tycho and I along with a few members of the PA crew will be in attendance again this year. You can find all the details here along with instructions on how to register for the event. This will be our third Wombicon and I can tell you with all honestly it is shaping up to be the best ever.

Got questions? Hit this forum.

-Gabe out