Alright. So, a couple things happened.

One, the Sony Syndrome "story" is probably over. We're fond of this as an ending place for it, but we your comic masters are mercurial and delight in misdirection. One never really knows. We promise nothing, and you should expect nothing. Nothing!

The second thing is that the Spike event sort of put me off of awards for the time being. Just as a random comment, if your 2004 awards program does not include Metroid Prime 2 or World of Warcraft, it has no authority whatsoever to coronate the king of any genre. I'm not even saying that those games need to win. I'm simply stating that the games exist and are real, news which has not reached them out there on the ragged periphery of taste and intellect. It has been our annual tradition to list the twelve most delicious games of the year here at Penny Arcade, and though the odds of us telling you our favorites are actually quite high doing it the way we've done it for the last few years really sounds awful to me. To both of us, even. So we're not going to do that.

What we are going to do is present a very short children's book concerning a celestial alignment which awakens the doom that lies dead and dreaming in R'lyeh. The first page can be found here. Ia! I'm sure you'll agree that this will be a great deal more fun for everyone involved. It goes until the 27th of December, the Monday after next. This is the cover.

Child's Play: Kiko's Child's Play Shirt is, like his other work, a stunning act of design savvy. He still has a few left in the run, if you'd like to climb aboard. We're coming up on the end of this year's drive, and I have every faith that when we incorporate the gifts from the partner sites last year's high score will be defeated, and we will enter our initials.

Please consider what the games you enjoy could mean to a young person staring down a long-term illness. If you haven't given yet, it's possible you don't know: you're entirely capable of heroism. The barrier to entry is surprisingly low.

(CW)TB out.

i can't tell you why

Tycho mentioned Kiko earlier and I just wanted to let everyone know that he has two brand new designs available. I know you can buy video game shirts from a bunch of different websites now but Gameskins is special. I like Kiko's stuff because his designs are so fucking solid. I mean honestly I'd hang some of his stuff on my wall if he made prints. Any jackass with Photoshop can take the mushroom from Mario and slap it on a Shirt. Kiko's work is original and powerful and that's why I love it. Anyway check out his new Blood Code shirt as well as his Fighter91 Tee.

I'd like to thank Slashdot for hosting today's comic strip as well as the cover for the project. We got hammered yesterday thanks to a big article in the New York Times. The server is still limping along as I write this, so if you're having trouble seeing the comic you can hit Slashdot. I wonder if we can Wang Slashdot?

I'm getting ready for my trip back home to Spokane for the holidays. I've packed a bag full of stuff to keep me occupied in that wasteland of a city. I've got KOTOR, which I'm about four hours into and very evil. I've got the new Kingdom Hearts for the GBA which I'm only about an hour into but already love and I've got the newest Star Wars book, Republic Commando: Hard Contact which I am sure will be a pile of shit but hey its Star Wars. With all this stuff I should be able to fend off boredom as well as avoid interacting with my family for at least five days. "Merry Christmas, I'll be in my room."

Hey Tycho, did you know the new Kingdom Hearts game on the GBA is card based? Usually you tell me about every game that has anything even close to a card based battle system but I never heard you talk about this one. Well in KH not only is the combat based on cards but you actually construct the world map and its levels with cards. I'm telling you man, if you played this you'd shit yourself and then pass out.

-Gabe out

There is a new Child's Play auction on eBay right now with a gorgeous piece of original artwork from Kazu Kibuishi. Kazu not only has one of the best web comics online in the form of "Copper" he also has one of the best print comics with "Daisy Kutter". As if that wasn't enough for him he's also the driving force behind the insanely beautiful "Flight" Anthology. His work is unique and refreshing and I can't thank him enough for creating this piece especially for Child's Play. Please check it out and bid on it, all the proceeds will go directly to Child's Play.

-Gabe out

So I told you guys how I kept the free N-Gage QD I got because it's about a million times better than my old phone. I don't play games on it because the games are disgusting, but I love all the smart phone shit it can do. Anyway I'm trying to get it to check my Gmail but I'm having some problems. From what I understand Gmail is now accessible via POP3. Unfortunately, the N-Gage QD doesn't appear to support SSL for POP3 connections. SMTP is fine, so I can send mail via Gmail, but not receive it. Does anyone know if there's a way around this? Is there a third-party app that will fix this issue? I have Opera installed but Gmail doesn't support Opera so I can't access it via the browser. Any help would be much appreciated.

-Gabe out